sunday sweep - volume III

How do the weeks seem to roll by so quickly these days? I swear the days are shorter or else I'm just moving slower and being a big fat lazyass. Nah, it's gotta be the days are shorter. Right? Whatever. Here's the latest edition of Sunday Sweep - all the random crap from the past week that's probably not blog worthy anyway but I still want to yak about.

I hate my job
Yep, you heard me right. I hate my job! Anyone reading this from where I work - you KWIM! It's not the job, per se. It's the way the show is orchestrated. Complete lack of planning on someone elses part DOES NOT, and never will, constitute an emergency on mine. I'm so tired of running in circles and jumping through hoops for these people, especially when you find out your boss is totally badmouthing you to a coworker. Yeah, coworker that heard it was the one who turned around and told me about it. Hah! Stupid bitch. My boss, not my coworker. At least I only have a couple more months of the bullshit unless I can find something else earlier and leave a pile of shit for them to figure out without me there to hold thier hands.

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking...
It's time to kick the job search into high gear.....again. As previously noted, not only do I hate my job, but the clock on my contract is rapidly ticking to an end. See, I told you the days were shorter, and you didn't believe me, did you? The one thing I hate even more than my job is looking for a job. Some of you may recall last year's job search. Ten excruciatingly long months of it. I swear if I have to go through that again I'm gonna string myself up from the ceiling fan this time. I am so tired of being told I'm "over qualified" for the jobs I'm applying for. Jesus Christ! Bring me in, let me do the job, and then we can talk about whatever the hell else I can do for you! Don't just discard me like an old slipper because you don't think I won't stay around for long.

Precariously perched on the fence
Adding to my already full schedule, next week I'll be attending a meeting at school. I am one of who knows how many parents who were invited to meet with the accreditation visiting team during their visit next week. This should prove to be a very interesting and entertaining evening, to say the least. With the drama of last year still fresh in many parent's minds, I'm sure the "hand picked" collection of parents being "cordially invited" to meet with the visiting team will be none other than the superficial blindfold wearing lemmings that constitute a good majority of our school community. It's been mentioned that the visiting team will not lead the discussion or discuss and questionable subject that they may have insider information on until it is broached by one of the parents. This leaves me with a rather ominous decision to make - bite my tongue and listen, or speak my mind and be heard. I have no idea what I'll do, and don't plan on making any discision until the opportunity presents iteslf. Or I present the opportunity. Heh!

Schooldaze
In addition to the accreditation meeting, I need to talk to someone (though still undecided who) about a subject I'm a little more familiar with these days than I care to be - bullying and harrassment. The offender: a snot nosed, second grader in my little man's class. The offense: Repeated bullying and harassment of my little man AND several of the other kids in the class, though I'm only going in on the little man's behalf and the rest of them are gonna have to wait until their parents step up to the plate and say enough is enough. I know "boys will be boys" and all that crap, and I'm all for letting kids "work it out", however when I hear about the same shit happening over and over and over again and don't see anything being done about it. It's time to lay the smackdown! Aimee's going through a similar situation with her little guy, albeit not in the bullying and harrassment realm but in the indiscretions of a teacher, and her list of what to do is very similar to mine.

1. Talk to the parents of the little shit.
2. Talk to the teacher.
3. Talk to the recess duty people.
4. Talk to the principal.
5. Talk to the Policy Action Team.
6. Talk to the PA/BOD.
7. Scare the crap out of the little shit.
8. All of the above.

I know which one I'd like to do. Yeah, probably not the best choice in this situation. So now I'm struggling with which way I'll go with it. I can explain away each and every one of those options and frankly don't think a damned thing will come of this whichever way I turn, but NO ONE bullies my little man and gets away with it. Not on my watch!

Sheesh! I guess I had a lot more to say than I thought I did when I first sat down to write. I just want to thank all of you who commented, emailed or called me with support for my Dad's procedure last week. So far he's doing well and we're all just waiting for results day to get here.

Go now. Enjoy the last few hours of your weekend. And GO PACKERS!!! What? I gotta root for someone now that my boys threw their chance in the toilet.

Until the next time. Ciao!

sunday seven

Seems like the week's gone by and I haven't gotten around to posting - again. {sigh} Several of the blogs I read have Sunday posts that sort of wrap up the week on topics that don't necessarily have enough meat to be stand-alone posts of their own, so I thought I'd go ahead and make a Sunday Seven. So, without further delay, here's a few items from the past week I thought I'd share.

1. Why is it every time we have a weather pattern a bit out of the ordinary that sweeps through the area they have to come up with some stupid ass name for it? This one was named something completely lame like The Big Wind of 2007. Uh, duh! There was a lot of wind, and it was big, but c'mon. Can't you come up with anything a bit more creative? The only good thing about this one is the kiddo's school lost power and after about 30 minutes decided to close school for the day so I got an afternoon off work. Of course that made for a pretty busy Friday catching up from what I'd not done Thursday afternoon, but whatever.

2. Boo! Eek! Trick-or-Treat! The house is finally decked out in all of Halloween's glory complete with pumpkins, skeletons, spiders, webs and lights. I usually get things going before it gets this late but being that the half of my garage not housing my car is full of crap all over the floor keeping me from getting a ladder close enough to the shelves to get to the Halloween box and the fact that I won't get on a ladder if I'm the only one home for fear of falling off and cracking my head open (which some days wouldn't probably be so bad except I'm afraid the blood oozing out would mat my hair and I'd look unpresentable when found some days later) I figured if it didn't get done today, I might as well just scrap it this year.

3. I hang out with the craziest group of girls at work. The other day one of them started talking about feet. Ewww! One of the lesser known things about me, and one I've probably never discussed here, is my absolute abhorrence for feet. Seriously. I know it's weird but I loathe looking at the bare foot. It just creeps me out. Try and make me touch it and I'll scream like a little girl. Yuck! Anyway, back to my crazy friends. One started talking about feet and I cringed. She's the one who likes to find the little things that bug is and ride us about it. I'd hoped they'd never find out my dislike, but now that they know feet seem to come up in conversation just as much as poop, snakes and grasshoppers - the other phobias of the group. Yeah, I know. We're a weird bunch!

4. I was gonna do Hilly's Phraseology game, but I seriously don't have a clue what words I use more frequently than others. I'm sure some of you could tell me (and probably will), so go for it!

5. This last week I've been hooked on tea. And not just any tea. Trader Joe's spice tea. It's kind of like chai spice tea, but not exactly. I find myself craving it around 10am and then again around 2pm, both of these being after my morning pot of coffee. It's so yummy with a bit of sweet (either Equal or honey) and a splash of milk. Yum!

6. I had good intentions to go see The Nightmare Before Christmas this weekend but didn't quite make it.

7. And last but not least, the drama that I've been dealing with for the past 5 months and not talking about here is slowly taking baby steps in the right direction. This is a HUGE relief to me and my body's already reacting to the release of pressure by completely falling apart. It's amazing how we can keep pushing ourselves when needed but given the opportunity to relax even the slightest bit, it's all over.

what was it I was just saying?

What was that I was saying the other day? Something about not having anything to write about? Uh... yeah. You'd think I'd learn my lesson about posting stuff like that. But noooo! I had to go and open that can of worms. Didn't I?

First, thanks to all of you who not only read my whining but actually left me comments and suggestions. You gave me the warm fuzzies because frankly I figured ya'll probaby gave up on me and got tired of coming over here to see nothing new. You like me! You really like me!!

Anyway, as my life goes, whenever I lay things out on the line, like saying there was nothing worth writing about, all sorts of things just start gelling. Take yesterday for example. During my lunch break not one but two blog worthy stories came up during conversations with co-workers. I was really excited to come home, get the normal shit of the day done, and plunk myself down in front of the computer to write. Except life had other plans for me. So these two stories and using some of the suggestions from my adoring fans will have to wait for another day. Today I tell you about my Friday night adventure at home.

It started off as a typical Friday evening - leave work, drive home through the massive downpour that decided to come down right in the middle of rush hour causing traffic to back up for miles in both directions of the Interstate, pick up the kiddo, hang with him for awhile, then yak on the phone with my girl Stace. Sounds boring enough, eh? Well don't run off yet. This is where it gets good. Or bad. It all depends on how you look at it.

If I'm not roaming around the house doing laundry or cleaning up the kitchen I'm usually pacing between the garage and the living room when I'm talking on the phone. I hang outside smoking then retreat to the quiet of the living room for awhile so I don't have to listen to the teevee and play noises. Anyway, last night I was sitting on the sofa in the living room. It runs the length of the long wall and faces the wall of the front door entry with the actual front door to the left. As we're yakking about whatever something caught my eye - the trim around the front door. From my position on the sofa something looked amiss. Like the trim, or the door, was warped or something. And no I wasn't drunk. I was only on my first beer.

I stood up and walked to the door for closer inspection and as I approached I realized that the entire door frame where the chain lock is attached and draped over to the front door was pulled out from the wall. WTF? Completely off the wall. So far off the wall that the tiny little nails used to hold it up had about a quarter inch between the ends of them and the backside of the trim. At this point I interrupt whatever Stace is saying and tell her what I'm looking at. It completely baffled me because 1) my parents were just here for a week so there was always someone around the house during the entire day and night and if they'd had any mishaps with the front door they not only would have told me, but would have made sure it was fixed better than it'd been before they left to go back home, 2) we rarely ever use the front door since I park the car in the garage and we just come in through the laundry room, and 3) with a dog like my Jake, someone would have to really want in bad to go through the trouble of trying to get past him.

With no damage to the door, inside or out, and the door being double locked (deadbolt and all), and the chain still attached to both the trim and the door, it was baffling. Besides me, there are only three others who have a key to the house - my parents (previously exhonerated), my neighbor who was watching my kiddo all week before and after summer camp, and my ex (long story why, and not something I'll discuss here). So I asked WJ if they (him, the neighbor, the neighbor's kids, or any or all of the above) had tried to get into the house at all during the day while I was at work. Nope. Wasn't them. So that left only two other options. The ex, or someone who somehow got a key to my house or knows how to pick a lock AND relock the door when they're done.

At this point Stace suggests that I call the police. I debated on this one for two reasons. First, I hate calling the police because you always have to call the 911 number and then explain that's it's not "really" an emergency as emergencies are classified but that you really do need to talk to someone or you wouldn't have called them in the first place. I wish they had a non-emergency number for situations like this. And second, I'd already been home for like 2 hours when I'd discovered this and being that I was fine, WJ was fine, and nothing seemed to be missing from the house it seemed a little strange to get the police involved. Despite my reservations I called them. And you know what? They showed up maybe 5 minutes later. Impressive.

So now that this post has gotten way longer than I ever intended it to be, here's how the rest of it played out. The officer listened to my story, took pics, and said he was going to call my ex to see if he'd tried to get into the house for some reason. If he had, I was told I should explain the "rules" to him about entering the house univited, and if that didn't work, I should file a restraining order. Uh, yeah! If he says he didn't, it was suggested I have the locks changed and I would be assigned a case number as a victim of potential break-in.

Can you guess what happened? Here, let me give you a hint. Sometime between the two birthday parties we have to go to this weekend and all the usual laundry, house cleaning, etc. that is always on the schedule, I now have to either go to one of the big box home improvement stores to buy new locks and try to figure out how in the hell to install them, or I'll be calling a locksmith.

This really wasn't the sort of interesting blog worthy writing I was looking for, but hey. Whatever works, eh?

my week in bullets

I've thought about bullets a lot this week. Being shot down. Being the shooter. Trying to catch you all up with my week in bullets. So, here we are. The highlights (and lowlights) of the week.

Neighborly Drama - The evil spawn is up to no good again. This time I got the clear picture after he smacked another neighbor kid upside the head - twice. I finally went down the street to talk to victim's mother, and boy did I get an earful! Not only did I hear about all the crap evil spawn's done to victim, I witnessed a pissing match between Mrs. A and victim's grandmother (a fiesty hispanic woman who ain't taking evil spawn's shit no mo). I know evil spawn is ADHD, and I'm sympathetic to any child living with that. What I'm not sympathetic to is the slacker parent who sets the spawn free to reek havoc and then pisses and moans when she's told evil spawn's behavior will not be tolerated. Get off your lazy butt and control your spawn!

When Trains Collide - Generally speaking my commute to The Winnebago isn't all that bad. Drive across town, pop on the Interstate, and a couple exits later I'm off. This is assuming that two trains don't derail effing up the backroad traffic detouring it down the mountian and dumping it at the tiny little intersection in the basin where the onramp I use is. I'm pretty sure I was on time at least once this week. Of course being on a modified work schedule for the next couple of weeks has its advantages.

The Winnebago - Training is done and I'm in the pits. Seriously. Digging out from under all the crap that rolled downhill from two people ago. My trainer has been trying to dig out for the past 14 months and still isn't done. Now it's my turn to pick up a shovel. And this is all the back end cleanup, not counting the new stuff that comes in every day. I am in email hell. Within 5 minutes I can have upwards of 20-30 new messages in my inbox. And that's not counting the 20 or so that fill up my home email waiting for attention when I get home.

Elections - Most of the home email is related to the election. No, not the Presidential election. The BOD election at school. Somehow I was drafted to be a campaign manager for two new candidates vying for the two open spots on the BOD. The change is seriously needed, but with only two spots open and six total BOD members, it's not even enough to tie the voting at this point. What really needs to happen is ousting the administration. Then again, I'm not totally invested in this like others are since I've decided I'm tired of paying for the priviledge of an effed up administration and would rather have one for free. The kiddo's headed to public school next year.

Final Note - Thanks to all of you for your supportive messages on my last post. It will probably be quite awhile before I'll be able to say much more on the subject I was alluding to, but wanted you to know I have an army of support now and am confident things will work out. So no more thinking of bullets. And no more bullets to write about right now.

Enjoy your weekend!

just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water

I knew going back to work would put a damper on my blogging, telephone convos, keeping tabs on friends, etc. That was something I was prepared for, having done it once before. What I was NOT prepared for was the drama that reared it's effing ugly head this weekend.
*Editing to clarify the drama has nothing to do with work. It's personal life crap.

I can't go into any details here because I don't want it used as evidence against me. Just wanted to let you all know that I'm still alive, haven't forgotten you, and try to get around to at least a couple of your blogs every day.