School Is Out

For Most Kids.

The year is coming to an end for most of the children suffering in the institutions known as public schools, except for at my kid's school where they have the nerve to make the children go for two more whole weeks before they are released. The daughter is extremely unhappy about this. I haven't even told her that most of the kids she knows had their last day of school almost a week ago. No, this would probably push her over the edge and make her even more difficult to motivate to get up and go.

She is completely fed up you see. She told me this morning, "I HATE SCHOOL!" as she whined and complained. Some people might think a longer year is a good thing, a sign that the school is wanting to spend as much time as possible educating their young charges, and the more time spent filling their little heads the better. They are wrong of course because the fact of the matter is, the children are there yes, they are, but they are essentially just punching the clock and being present.

The problem with schools these days is that they don't spend enough time making children hate school for the right reasons. Perfectly healthy minded children have hated school for as long as the institution has been around, but they hated it because they were challenged, they were held accountable, and the teachers made them work, they used to actually make kids learn things they didn't want to learn. We didn't like it as kids, but as adults of course we are thankful for it. In my daughter's case she hates it because she has teachers that are morons, when she has one that is, she hasn't had a teacher for half of the year now. Her teacher quit in the middle of the year, in the middle of the week, and has not been replaced. Nobody makes her work at school. I have never received a phone call because my daughter has not been working on her lessons.

No, I get phone calls because my daughter did not have the appropriate uniform of the day on. I get phone calls because my daughter was ornery and turned the light off in the bathroom on other girls. I get phone calls because my daughter is not wearing a belt, not because she doesn't know her times tables.

We did the public school thing. After multiple years of testing, special education, IEPs, with little result, we decided to try this charter school thing. People often ask me what a charter school is, I say, "well, we put her there because they have more individualized teaching available." That was my answer, and it was the truth. There were some things I didn't really like about the charter school, the uniform was sort of commie in my eyes, but I decided since she was so miserable in public school we could live with it.

I don't really know what the point of charter schools is, supposedly it has something to do with more parent involvement. I call this the PTA gone mad with power syndrome. If you think the PTA is bad at your public school, you should attend some meetings at a charter school. These people know they can pretty much make demands and that the school is going to go along with it. Problem is, some of these people are just downright freaky, some of them are aggressive, and most of them are stupid in my opinion.

They are the ruling class. They have nothing better to do than hang out in the office and make copies, phone calls, and plan ways to insert themselves into the daily running of the school every which way they can, and did I mention that some of them are idiots? These are the people who send out different packets every month of things they are selling to raise money. For what it never says, and frankly I don't care. I am not selling anything, and I always send the things back with my daughter. I will start selling crap for the school when they actually start doing their real jobs and what they are paid to do, which is teach children to read and multiply 6 times 9 with complete accuracy. Until then, I don't think they should be selling a darn thing.

Back in the old days the only time my parents ever even so much as set foot in our school building was to pick us up if we had thrown up in math class, or to go to a Christmas program. Other than that they knew by the fact that we came home every afternoon with homework that we sat down and did on our OWN with very little prompting that all was well. They knew their children could read a newspaper, and even add 161 plus 39. We had books to read, we read them. We had work to do, we did it, and we were lazy little shits too, but we knew if we did not do it, we might fail, and that was the worst nightmare we had.

Our teachers were nice, professional, and firm. There was never an army of parents hanging around the school doing whatever it is these people who are apparently unemployed do all day at the school. Sure there were a few of them who came and gave us cupcakes and treats on holidays, my mom did that many times, but when it came down to the nitty gritty our parents knew we were in good hands, and that our teachers had everything under control.

Everything has changed. School is nothing like I remember it being when I went through it. My daughter is not stupid, but I've been told by this test score and that test score and this teacher and that, that she has learning problems. Funny, she functions quite well at home, people are often shocked to hear what the schools have had to say about her abilities.

I think it is well past time that we brought her home. They are ruining her education. We will most likely homeschool next year. Enough is enough. They made her hate school for all the wrong reasons. We can't do worse. It is time for us to try and save what is left of her formative years.

Pre Post Post

Will Post Soon.

Between carpet vacuuming, shampooing and doing laundry I thought to myself, I really have been neglecting the old bloggy thing. I didn't beat myself up about it or anything, but I thought perhaps I should post about something even if it is my usual boring fare. Then it came to me, my life just isn't all that exciting right now even though I am pretty darn happy with it for the most part.

We are deep in the heart of spring cleaning. My gosh I don't know why I even bother to post. I am sure absolutely no one at all wants to hear about our spring cleaning even if I am contemplating changing the curtains in the living room.

On that note I will close here with a promise to post something boring again really soon.

Not As Fun As Naked Yoga

Yard Work.

All right, I haven't been blogging because I have been doing naked yoga. Oops, sorry, I meant yard work. I think this post just died, the sad thing is it just started. I don't think I can salvage it, but I will try.

Nope, I don't think I can. Not unless I actually blog about naked yoga. I've never tried it mind you, so I don't have much to offer there. I can imagine it, and truthfully the image is not all that pretty. Maybe I just don't have a good enough imagination because all I keep seeing in my mind is an extremely hairy over weight man holding some sort of leg lift position, I have no idea what cutesy tootsy name that pose gets in yoga, but it doesn't matter anyway because the minute it happened every one witnessing it would forget the name, and would begin clawing at their own eyes. Or maybe I'm just immature, and am uncomfortable with nudity due to my prudish Puritannical American upbringing.

I'm not actually uncomfortable with nudity, per se. I happen to be nude under my clothes and I am perfectly all right with that. I wouldn't necessarily mind some naked yoga I guess, although I would probably rather not for the most part, and the only reason is I'd just rather not do yoga at all. I'd much rather take a walk, although I realize that won't make my abs look like Madonna's.

What draws a Doctor to the field of proctology anyway? That's what I was wondering today. If I were to be a Doctor that would not be my first choice of study. Now in all fairness I do see the need for proctologists, even the exit end of our pie holes sometimes unfortunately need attention. I realize this, and it is probably a silly thing to think about.

Thistle. It is the most evil (ob)noxious weed known to man. I hate the stuff. It is so prickly, stubborn and nasty it is almost impossible to get rid of. I think if I were to burn my yard, which I would never do for goodness sakes calm down people, the only thing still standing would be the thistle.

Every week countless hours of my extremely precious time are spent battling the thistle, and that other thing that has roots as strong as steel ropes. It rains, the grass and weeds grow three inches. It doesn't rain, the grass and weeds grow three inches. Right now I really need to mow the lawn twice a week just to keep it under control.

My itty bitty baby grass is coming up. This brings me much joy. We planted three little baby Aspen trees, they will bring much needed shade and interest to our back yard. The yard is freshly mowed and poop scooped. It was all worth it. The pulled hamstrings, the weird shaky thing my arm is doing whenever I try to use it, the sore muscles all over my body all of it--worth it.

That's what I've been doing. It is not nearly as exciting as naked yoga I'm sure, but still it is nice to see the fruits of our labors, and have the prospect of a nice yard in the future. Plus, the physical experience of being outside in the sun is great therapy for the body and soul. I highly recommend it.

Hey, I Got Nominated For Something

And It Didn't Involve Me Having To Clean.

Pretty darn cool. One of my posts got nominated at a website called "Watcher of Weasels". I saw a bunch of referrals from that website on the ole site meter thingy, and at first I was a bit alarmed thinking that someone out there had declared me a weasel and that they were watching me, but that wasn't the case at all thank goodness. Well, actually it was the case, but in a good way.

I'm anti-weasel just as much as the next person. I'm especially watchful of commies who as my dear Uncle would say, "drink their grandmother's bath water." My dad thinks I am a bit over zealous about it, he once suggested that I should "not go around looking under rocks for them." Which seemed odd since that is exactly where they like to hide.

Well, I decided to check back on this later, and was pleased to find that I even got a vote or two, and I didn't even vote for myself, honest, I didn't. Anyway, its here if you want to see the post and all of the nominees.

Sweet Scents Of Summer*

Are Not That Far Away.

Tomorrow it is done. The semester. I know school posts are beyond boring, so that is all I am going to say. Otherwise, I am just looking forward to summer. With all of this springy weather we've had lately I just cannot get enough of being outside.

This is the year. We will get this yard in some sort of shape. Planted, all right, threw down some grass seed, fertilizer, and some little baby grass is finally starting to grow. It is exciting, to me at least, everyone else seems very unenthusiastic about the thing. Oh well, they'll see. I have a vision. I have a plan.

We have a new member in our rapidly growing animal family. Now, I say it all the time, "if I bring another pet home, I am absolutely positive my husband will divorce me." It is enough that the man tolerates the lazy dogs, and the overly affectionate cats, I know that he has a limit. Two dogs, and 3 cats, anything else is just asking too much. But this time, HE brought the animal home. It wasn't my fault.

It all started when the hamster fell victim to an unfortunate ball accident. No, the thing didn't fall down the stairs. Actually, it was in its ball, and my daughter and her friend were cleaning the cage, and decorating her room, they decided to put the little guy in the ball and let it run around the downstairs, I said, downstairs, not down the stairs. I see they were thinking of the hamster's safety by putting it downstairs so it could not fall down. They forgot just one little detail, the dogs.

This might be news to some people, but dogs like to chase balls, they especially find clear plastic balls with furry critters inside all the more exciting to go after. Well, somehow they got the poor thing out of the ball, which led to numerous phone calls from two twelve year old girls who were darn near tramatized by the resulting how can I say this, carnage. It was too much.

Of course I was at work, and being in a non-cubicle profession was unavailable by phone. My friend, the mother of one of the girls had to handle it all from her workplace. My sister had to pick up my daughter, and my friend's dad picked up her daughter, and each were then sufficiently comforted by loving grandparents.

When I went on my lunch break, I checked my cell phone to make sure everything was all right with the girls at home. I had 5 voicemails, and a frantic text message from my sister, saying I "need to call home NOW." That freaked me out really bad, then I started wondering what the voicemails were about, and was quite alarmed. I have terrible reception at work. Luckily, the next text I read was from my friend, "you daughter is extremely upset and crying, Hamster is dead." And that was it. I gathered from those two text messages what was going on.

I got outside and finally got a signal and started calling people and listening to the messages, and most of them were of my daughter hysterically recapping the whole entire thing. Well, in between leaving me 5 voicemails, she also managed to call her daddy's phone and leave him equally heart wrenching messages as well.

I got a hold of my sister who told me everything was fine, and basically that the dog thought he was taking a bite out of crime, and that the little furry friend did not survive. I met up with them at my parents house after work, and over dinner with my folks was given the whole story. I asked, "where is the body?" My sister declared, almost defensively, "well, I wasn't going to bury it, that's a parents job"

"That's fine, but where is it?" I asked. "It is at your house in the garage in a chicken mc nugget box." She informed me. "Great." I said, "Well, I don't know what to do with it, I guess I will flush it down the toilet." Which appalled my father and he said, "NO! Don't do that, it will clog up your plumbing, just throw it in the trash." Apparently he has not seen the movie Flushed Away, although I wanted to blurt out, "Oh come on dad, it is no bigger than your average turd." But I decided against that because it was dinner time after all, and that would have made my mom really annoyed.

Anyway, I wish I could say we disposed of it with dignity, but I figure if you can throw a chicken bone away, then it must be all right to send the hamster out that way. I really did feel bad for the poor little thing. But not as bad as my husband did from all those miles away. He was so upset about her little pet dying that he vowed to get her another pet. Which I secretly questioned the wisdom of, but he insisted if she wanted something he would get her something else.

And that is how we got the chinchilla. I guarantee nothing is going to happen to that guy. My daughter is a zealot about keeping her door closed and all animals out of her room. She even has a gate up in front of her closed door. That's just the way it is. It is a delightful little creature. We are enjoying it very much. Hubby spared no expense and instead of the condo set up, opted for the New York penthouse with a view. The critter is way more high maintenance than a hamster, but it is so much fun.

All right I am off to bed. Should have been a long time ago.

Wasting Time

It Is Too Precious.

I hate to say this but I hardly ever get to see my family anymore. That is a crying shame since they live only about a mile away from me. I think about them all the time, I can go by there any time and stop in, yet, I tell myself, "I'll do X thing first, then go over and just hang out with mom." Trouble is, it ends up being X, Y and Z things first and next thing you know the week is gone, and I never did get by there.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I do it to mom? I know she wants to see me more often. I call her all the time, but I just never seem to make it down there, and that is just silly. For a fat woman I sure am spread thin these days. My family makes fun of me saying, "You always say you are so busy, but you never seem to get anything done." Of course I say, "that is not true at all, I am really busy, but I do get things done."

I didn't make it home early enough tonight and my poor dogs couldn't hold it long enough, and ended up going pooh in the house. They have never pooped in the house before. They have their own schedule, and I should have been home earlier, but I got off work late and there it goes.

At the start of every week, I tell myself, this week I am going to get everything done and under control. Why do the evenings go so fast? Why do the days go so fast? I look up and it is bed time, well, beyond bed time actually, and chores are left undone, put off for the next day, and the next.

But everyone likes to tell me how I have so much time on my hands because I work part-time. Really? Well, no one is going to do my job for me. Not my paying job mind you, I'm talking about my job of being a mother, of taking care of our house, running the household. No one else is going to do that for me. I don't have extra hundreds laying around where I could contract out some of the things that I do around here. Besides, I would spend 18 hours cleaning this house before letting someone come in to clean it lest they think we were dirty pigs living here.

Some women do great at this stuff. I'm not good at it. I'm not being negative or a downer here, I'm really just not that good at juggling so many things. I have a friend whose house looks perfect all the time, any time of day, any day of the week, nobody has ever stopped in unexpectedly and found so much as a dirty dish in the sink, or a shoe not put in its proper place. She works full-time and is a single mom. I don't know how she does it. I've watched her though, and she has a compulsive cleaning gene I think.

She walks by something out of place, she immediately puts it away. I walk by something out of place, I make a mental note to go back later and put it away. That's the heart of it, and that's why I am an underachieving housewife, even though I'm technically not a housewife, but I do have a house and I am a wife, so somewhere in there a lot of cleaning, cooking and shopping is involved.

Forget the house, the chores, the errands, I am going to spend at least one day this week with my momma, and I'm going to do her shopping for her, and clean up around her house for her. I owe it to her, she needs extra help these days.

Now I am off to bed. Have a good one.

Two Words

Why I Don't Want Government In Charge Of Healthcare.

Walter Reed. That's it. The two words that pretty much sums it up. My husband was in the military for 13 years. We experienced first hand government health care. It is a hit or miss experience, and from our position, it is mostly miss. From our own personal experience, we were glad to have some health coverage, however, how efficient, and how good it actually was is another question.

We know what it was like before tri-care, and what it was like after. Before tri-care waiting for a couple of hours on the phone to make an appointment was par for the course. After tri-care, it was much easier, and more streamlined, it improved in many ways as far as availability. It did become easier to make an appointment.

Although it became easier to actually see a health care provider, I can't say the quality of which improved all that much at all. In fact, I'm surprised my daughter and I survived the experience of her birth. All of those fancy things that people experience in regular hospitals when giving birth were non-existent in the military hospital I was in.

I ended up having a C-section. I was lucky in that, those of us who had c-sections only had one room mate, everyone else were housed in a room with multiple beds. The babies were to room in with the mothers, even if she had a C-section, unless there was something wrong with the kid. That sounds all fine and dandy except, the fathers had to leave by 8:00pm, that meant, after that you were on your own with the kid.

After my surgery I could barely move. I had her at 11:29pm at night. I woke up sometime in the middle in the night after all of the anesthesia had worn off, and felt like I had been ripped in half, I could not move one inch without horrible pain. I managed to get into one position and stay that way. My husband had already left, he could not stay for the night. I had not seen my baby yet, except for a brief instance where the nurse held her so I could see her right after she was born. I wasn't even sure where he or she was.

At some point someone came in and told me to massage my stomach, and to keep massaging it as much as possible. I still had my I.V. in, I assumed I was being given pain medication. The next day I talked with my roommate. I told her I was dying in pain, she asked if it was time for my pain medication? I said, "I don't know." She said, "You have to ask for it." I called the nurse and asked for it. Apparently, I was not given anything unless I asked for it. I assumed that after an abdominal surgery that would be given automatically, I was wrong.

It is the next day, I still have not seen my baby. I ask the nurse if I can see my baby. She says, "Pretty soon we will have you get up, and you can walk to the nursery and see her." Remember I said that babies were supposed to room in with the mother unless there was a problem? Apparently they were quite perplexed at our daughter's blood work. My husband came in. I don't remember him being there much at all. I don't remember what happened that day. I know that evening after he had left, a doctor came in and said, "We need to do a spinal tap on your baby to see if she has sepsis."

I was completely blown away. I said, "I don't know about that." He said, "We can't wait, if she has it, she could die within hours." He said, "I will bring you some paperwork to sign." Then he left the room. I didn't have a phone in my room to call my husband or anything. I was crying. I was very confused.

Later the nurse came in and said that I could get up and take a walk. I got up and slowly walked over to the nursery, there in the middle of the nursery was the doctor doing a spinal tap on my baby. I will never forget that image in my mind. I walked in the door of the nursery and made my presence known, the doctor came over and said, "You probably shouldn't be here for this" and shuffled me out into the hallway.

I found a pay phone in the hallway and called my mom in another state collect and told her what was going on. She told me to call my husband and get him down there that I was in no state to deal with this stuff. I was mentally out of it. He could not come down there, it was after visiting hours. The nurse told me to go back to bed.

Later the Doctor brought me the paperwork to sign. I asked if she was all right, He said, "We were unable to get any spinal fluid, we are going to start her on anti-biotics." That night they came and removed my i.v.

The next morning my husband came in with our baby. He brought her in the room and said she could stay in there with us. I told him what happened. He did not know what to do or think. Nobody told us anything. Nobody had any answers for us.

On the board in the nursery was our daughter's name, and several other babies, and next to all of them it said, "R/O Sepsis"-- rule out sepsis. I supposed that the other babies were given spinal taps as well. They eventually told me something was wrong with her blood, we learned years later that she had Spherocytosis. Everything they did was completely wrong, a good hematologist could have made that diagnosis without sticking a needle in our daughter's spine 13 times. Thirteen, that's how many poke marks were on our daughter's back.

I was in there for 5 days. I was not allowed to bath for 5 days. My daughter was there for a week and a half as she developed jaundice and they would not release her. The jaundice was most likely related to her spherocytosis. During the time we were in there, we were isolated from family, and they did pretty much whatever tests they wanted on our daughter. There is absolutely no reason that she needed that spinal tap, that Doctor was abusing his position and authority and practicing on innocent people. There was nothing we could do about it.

It was a horrible experience that we just wanted to put behind us. Towards the end of my stay, as my condition improved I began confronting the medical staff and demanding more answers. Basically I started throwing a major shit fit after I came to my senses and realized the number of ethics violations that were taking place. They started listening to me. I spoke with a patient representative, of course nothing was done about any of it, they are all on the same team you know. I left that hell hole hoping to never go back.

A few years later, at a different military hospital, they almost killed our daughter. She had been running a low-grade fever, and was listless I kept taking her to the military hospital, a different hospital, completely different state. There, foreigners made up a great number of the staff in the "clinics", they were not even doctors, I don't know what their qualifications were to be practicing medicine. I told them my daughter was extremely pale, was listless, running a low fever, was stumbling around when she walked, was incoherent, I was told to give her some tylenol. I was told this 3 times on 3 different occasions as I kept taking her back and saying, "Something is Wrong!"

Finally, after my daughter slept for almost 24 hours straight, we took her to a civilian hospital in town. There in the E.R. they drew her blood and found that she had a hemoglobin of 4. It is supposed to be 12-18. The doctor told me she had 1/3 of the blood in her body that she was supposed to have. That had this gone on much longer she would have most likely went into congestive heart failure and died.

She was admitted immediately and within a short period of time was diagnosed with spherocytosis, and started receiving a series of 4 blood transfusions. She was in the hospital for 3 days. She was attended to, she was treated with dignity. My husband I were allowed to stay with her continuously.

When it came time for tri-care to pony up and pay for this expedition, I received a phone call from a commander at the military hospital were she had previously been seen. In a very heated conversation he told me, "I am not going to sign off on this claim, you should have brought her here and not to the civilian hospital." I said, "Well, I did take her to your hospital, 3 times, I was told to give her tylenol and take her home, if you people had done a simple CBC I wouldn't have had to take her elsewhere, I took her to the nearest hospital when I was unable to wake her up and she was practically unconscious. You guys almost killed my daughter." He replied, "Well, I hope you have lots of money saved up because tri-care is not going to pay for her visit there, what was she in there for 3 days, hope you can afford that."

I hung up and called her hematologist and told him exactly what happened, and said, "I'm sorry, tri-care might not pay." He said, "they will pay, don't worry, let me handle it." After he got done with them, they were kissing my rear. She had a special doctor assigned to her in the pediatric unit who did absolutely nothing concerning her health without consulting the hematologist, and the hematologist even went down to the hospital to teach classes on these types of cases and how not to miss them. Oh, and tri-care paid for everything. Miracle of miracles.

I stand by my position, I never want the government in charge of my health care. The Walter Reed scandal was not shocking to me in the least. Most of the military hospitals I've been in were run down, and not much better. Staffed by inexperienced, or downright unqualified people who have no business "practicing" medicine on anyone. They practiced on my daughter all right. Practiced.

Being An Adult

Means Seeing Reality.

Our employment, jobs, careers, whatever you wish to call the source of your income, are an enormous part of our lives. The alternatives to working for a living a limited and unacceptable to most reasonable people. Sometimes things are great, sometimes they are terrible, there are often bumps in the road, and people get into slumps, get burned out, or sometimes just need a break from it all.

Most people will happily grind along if they feel adequately compensated, and sufficiently appreciated. Morale rides high, and turn over is slow. Which brings me to this, probably the most detrimental thing any manager can do to morale is let slip the notion that every single one of his employees is replaceable. Immediately replaceable, and that he would just as soon see you go than stay. If you treat people like machines, you get machines. Machines only give the required output, nothing more. Machines don't strive for more, or to be better. They are simply machines which care nothing for you, your mission, or the professional goals which you cannot truly reach without the people below you working for you.

Sure, people know there are others who would fill their spot were they to leave their post. That is not what I am referring to, I am speaking of an attitude which if allowed to prevail will bring the morale of the people working below to its knees. One might say, who cares about morale, people are paid to do a job, they can do it or move on. Sure, that is true, but low morale is a poison which festers and brings the whole group down. New people are immediately brought into the fold, and are exposed to the negativity right away. It leads to bickering at best, and back biting at worst. These are not good conditions, they do not promote productivity.

All of this does nothing to promote team work. Yes, I hate the team team team go TEAM cheerleading as much as the next person, but teamwork is necessary to any group working towards the same ultimate goals. Being an adult means, find another job, or suck it up and get through it hoping for better days. That is the reality of the thing. Do your best no matter how many roadblocks are hurled at you. And try to keep your mouth shut.

I Owe An Apology

For Boring.

I have written some really cruddy posts. I spent some time this morning reading through some old posts and I noticed that whenever I started a post talking about school I immediately felt an overwhelming urge to just pass it right over. The school posts are incredibly boring. I'm sorry. I am not going to write about that anymore. That's all.

Almost There

Where Ever That Is.

Next week this semester will be over. Yippee! I haven't been planning well what I will do after it is over, I know school will start again soon for the summer. I'm debating on whether I am going to take classes this summer, or just enjoy the time with kiddo. Right now I'm leaning towards hanging with the kid instead. That and, well I haven't the funds right now. I think I will take the summer off and save some money for the fall. I think I just need the time to get a grip and think about some things.

I really need to take a writing class because I am not confident about writing research papers, and lets face it, people have to do that in college. I used to be just fine with that sort of thing, but now things have changed and I feel intimidated. I would rather spend the money and get up to speed so I don't have to stress it so much and freak out all the time. Anyway, that's a thought. Maybe I could just take one English course over the summer. Nahhhh. I'm going to have fun with my kid instead.

That's probably what got me in this bind to begin with. Choosing fun over what I should do. Only in this case I'm choosing it because my daughter has been so great, and I have been stressed out and haven't done hardly anything other than ordinary with her for pretty much the whole school year. She deserves a break, and a nice summer. It is decided then.

And since this post is about as exciting as reading my grocery list, I am going to close here. More later. It is a beautiful day out there. Just lovely. Today I will mow the lawn and pull weeds. I can't wait. Really. I like doing it. It makes me feel good.