Full Moon + Weather Changes = Attitudes!

This morning, while on morning duty, one of the 5th grade girls stomped up to me to announce she needed to talk. She was in such a huff and her parents always angrily blame the school when their daughter is upset (and she is upset often) and seemed to truly need to talk NOW that I stepped aside to talk with her.

Besides, the last time I ignored that the earth revolves around her "made" her wait, she bitch-slapped another student. And her parents went all the way to the Assistant Superintendent to complain about how I ignored their child in her time of need.

These parents find their argumentative girl charming. I wish I could tell these same parents how charming their baby sounds when she makes pronouncements declaring hate for her parents. The same parents who make fools of themselves defending her honor.

I; however, generally stick to the rule "My problem through 5th grade. Their problem FOREVER." At some point, she'll make the same hateful statements directly to her parents so why be the bearer of bad news. And besides, it'll be more meaningful coming straight from the source, eh?

Argumentative 5th Grade Girl (arms crossed and already almost out of breath with rage): "We have a problem!"

Me (smiling as I am still slightly amused... and clueless): "What problem would that be?"

Argumentative 5th Grade Girl: "Is it true that Twilight has been banned at school?"

Me (still smiling but not knowing anything about any book being banned at my school as I generally am not a book banner - nor am I a book burner while we are on the subject): "Why do you ask?"

Argumentative 5th Grade Girl: "Well, Mrs. Mean 5th Grade Teacher said that Twilight could not come back to school any more and I have a problem with this!"

Me (a lot less amused and suddenly remembering Mrs. Mean 5th Grade Teacher telling me last week about the kids fascination with all the implied sex scenes in the book thereby causing a group of 5th grade girls to hide out in the bathroom with said book): "Do you think it is a good decision to question Mrs. Mean 5th Grade Teacher's authority?"

Argumentative 5th Grade Girl (speaking with her hands in an attempt to emphasize her point): "Yes!"

Me (now, not happy at all): "I am going to walk away and pretend this conversation did not happen because a teacher has the authority to run her classroom as if it were her own and not yours. This conversation is over."

Argumentative 5th Grade Girl (clearly upset that her powers over her parents don't work so well on other adults): "But she has no right..."

Me (turning to walk away): "The conversation better be over because if you continue it, you won't like how it ends."

Argumentative 5th Grade Girl (crossing her arms and stamping her feet as she spins her body to storm away): "I can't wait to tell my parents about this."

So, how many hours do you think will pass before the Superintendent calls me?

UPDATE (3/12/09): The mother called to tell me that Argumentative 5th Grade Girl was in trouble at home. The daughter went home to tell about the book incident and it turns out her parents had told her she could not read Twilight until she turned 12. They were upset with her trying to get others to bring it to school. Whew! You never know what is going to happen!

You can't judge a book by it's cover

Right before Mr. Strong and I got married, we were looking for a new stove to replace the aging one that came with the house we were buying. There was one department store where an obnoxious eager salesman was hoping to land a sale.

As soon as we walked in the store, he came running up to see if he could assist us. When we told him we were looking for a new stove, he proudly pointed to his name tag and pronounced he was the "Appliance Expert."

Sure enough, we looked at the name tag. And it, in fact, said he was the "Appliance Expert."

Honestly, I don't remember much of what the "Appliance Expert" said that day. I was a bit distracted by what one must do in order to become an "Appliance Expert."

Do you have to study the different breeds of appliances? Do you have to go live in the wild while simultaneously learning to coexist with appliances? And is data collected on what kinds of people order a particular color of appliance? I mean, it could be a well known fact that educators usually go for last year's "it" color since the pitiful size of their wallets help with that life altering decision.

And on a different note, why would someone want to become an "Appliance Expert?" I've met many children who have wanted to grow up to be a fireman, a nurse, a teacher, and even a principal. I've never met a future "Appliance Expert."

There are a lot of unanswered questions here and I'd appreciate some wisdom.

About a year after marrying Mr. Strong, I moved up to the position of "Principal." Even if it was never my goal, I do; however, take my job seriously. Why else would I dedicate my life to a mere 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night?

Today, a parent came in and demanded to see the principal (This surprises you? Well, it shouldn't because it happens several times a week.). She was UPSET and stamping her foot about blah, blah, blah and something that happened on the bus. When I walked out of my office, the parent was unable to hide her look of surprise. And I often get that look when someone doesn't know who I am. Many, many parents think I am a teacher. Or maybe even the counselor. But no one EVER walks right up to me and says, "Ah. You must be the principal."

And day after day, I find myself pointing to my name tag to let them know I am the "Principal." And it always takes me right back to that moment with the "Appliance Expert."

So, really. What does a principal look like?

This Tuesday (or Monday evening), the tribute is to my name tag. Without you, I might never be taken seriously.

The weather is nicer. Now, it is time for the economy to follow suit.

I've lived in Georgia for over 35 years and I never remember having a winter quite like the one we just had. It seems Old Man Winter forgot his part of the pact to make winters mild. That is the deal we have in place for living where summers are hotter than that place down under. Granted, we don't usually get snow so I'm sure there a people who could one up me with their winter stories, but we chose to live where the snow doesn't fall. I don't really care to ever see snow at my house. Just sayin.

Yesterday, was gorgeous with temperatures in the upper 70s. I decided to take stock of what plants weren't frozen to death.

I do love that pansies are winter plants. They put up a fight throughout the freezing cold. And we appreciate their efforts.

Somehow, a few of the pink flowers made it. I don't know what they are but I like them. And the really stand out since the vast majority of the yard is brown and dead.

While pulling weeds (and how the heck do they thrive in the winter) from around the holly fern, I talked with my only favorite niece who lives in New York City (please say it with a really southern accent - because my niece likes it said that way).

She lost her job a couple of months ago. Throughout it all, she has kept a positive outlook but yesterday I could hear the desperation in her voice.

First, I wish I could go beat up her former bosses for letting her go. They are obviously idiots. Idiots without money. But still idiots.

And second, I wish I could send her a bazillion dollars so she wouldn't have to worry about money and rent and food.

My niece is a wonderful person who grew up with very little. She has worked hard for everything she has and it just slays me to hear the anxiety in her voice.

When I ventured into the front yard, I noticed some of the dogwoods blooming. Amazing how the blooms can just pop out overnight. And for some reason, it gave me a sense of hope.

This warmer weather is lifting my spirit.

After working for a while, it was time to take a break with Ms. Poopy. She was so excited about me getting out a blanket for us to lay on in the yard. And to show her appreciation, she promptly climbed on the blanket and peed. Thank you, Ms. Poopy. Nothing says spring like laying on a dog piss blanket.

This is why I drink

Days like today make me eager to get home and relax with a spicy Bloody Mary or three. At least the added bonus is I'm getting my vegetables, too.

For some reason, various departments at my school system's Central Office called a variety of meetings. Conveniently, they fell on four consecutive days this week. Nothing says overwhelmed like not being at the school to get the work done and apparently, I'm not supposed to have a life and learn to just commit to working 24/7.

So, today, after getting back from a budget meeting (where *ironically* we were told to cut back on traveling to the Central Office for meetings as if we get paid for using an extra tank of gas - which makes me realize that someone is getting paid for their gas usage), I was greeted by a teacher who had had it with a particular child. I do believe there was smoke hovering around her ears.

Me (reading the office referral): So, why are you here? (I sound like a damn doctor don't I?)

Mr. Stares-A-Lot: shrugs his shoulder (At least he didn't answer with answers related to his health.)

Me: Seriously? You don't know why you are here? Would you like me to read the referral to you?

Mr. Stares-A-Lot: No, thanks. Ms. Mad Teacher is just a little angry because I make a lot of noises in the classroom. And she says the girl in front of me can't pay attention.

Me: Well, that is part of the problem. Ms. Mad Teacher has told you to lay off with the noises. And yet, you haven't stopped. Is there a problem?

Mr. Stares-A-Lot: Kind of. You see, I make the noises even if I don't think about them.

Me: Well, you aren't making them now. Have a go at it. Make some of the noises. I want to hear just how annoying you are in the classroom.

Mr. Stares-A-Lot (after a pregnant pause): Ummmm... Well... Ummmmm...

Me (thinking I've made him really uncomfortable): If you can make the noises in the classroom you can make them here. I want to hear what you've been doing.

Mr. Stares-A-Lot: Well, then can I have a piece of paper?

Me (with that head cocked-to-the-side confused look): A piece of paper?

Mr. Stares-A-Lot: Yeah. You see, first I need to make the paper airplane.

Sadly, our airplane escapades were interrupted by a bus driver bringing a runaway 4th grade student back to school. Apparently, Mr. Runaway wasn't allowed to go out for recess because his mother wanted him indoors due to an ear infection. He decided to run back to the house (only 5 or 6 miles away) to change his mother's mind. Thankfully, a bus was driving on the VERY BUSY road and tricked Mr. Runaway to get on the bus by telling him she'd take him home. She brought him back to school instead.

Me (barely able to speak with the fear of all that could have gone wrong): What were you thinking?

Mr. Runaway: I don't want anyone to yell at me?

Me (regaining vocal abilities): Well, you picked a fine way to show that.

In the end, Mr. Runaway's mother came rushing to the school when I called her. She promptly held and cuddled him and I was shocked because if it had been my son I probably would have smacked him across the room for being so stupid. When I announced Mr. Runaway would be a Kindergarten student (remember, he is a 4th grader) the next day because I couldn't trust that he wouldn't run away, the mother argued and said he shouldn't have to be punished because, after all, he scared the living holy crap out of us imagining all the things that could have gone wrong.

It saddens me when parents don't get the simple rules of the universe.

Good choices = good consequences
Bad choices = bad consequences

And the worst part is this mother is currently going to school to be a teacher.

I sleep with Santa Claus

First, I was tagged by Only A Movie (one of my favorite hangouts for reading - I love her insight and calmness) for a meme and I am to list seven things about me. And since this has been the meeting week from hell (I have fanny fatigue, I tell ya), I decided to play along. Plus, I'm just a rule follower at heart.

Mr. Strong is Santa Claus

1 - I really do sleep with Santa Claus. My Jewish husband has been Santa Claus for over 30 years. I actually sat on his lap as a kid (me as the kid, him as the Santa). Kind of sick, huh?

2 - I was almost 40 before I really learned to eat strawberries. I always loved the taste but had to learn to get past the seedy texture. And the chocolate helped.

3 - I only taught for three years before moving into administration. You know what they say. Screw up, move up.

4 - I miss teaching and I dream of moving back to the classroom. I was a special education teacher and I'd love to be right back in the middle of a class of Emotional Behavior Disorder filled students. Those are my kind of people.

5 - My favorite word is sequester and my favorite math fact is 7x8. What? You don't have a favorite math fact? You should try it.

6 - My closet is organized by clothes type. And color. I can get dressed in the dark (which is handy during hurricane season) and still match.

7 - I get attached to cars. All of the cars in my life have had names. And they have all been girls. My first car was Agnes (as in Agnes of God) and we were together for 13 years. I was truly brokenhearted when Agnes left her earthly home for that place in the sky.


I was also tagged by Michel at Facts are Strictly Optional for a different type of meme. If you haven't read her, she is funny!

The first rule of this Meme (you decide, is it Me Me or Meme as in theme) is that you put Your Name in a Google search and post your results.

Well, Beth came up with the Kiss song, Beth. Which totally rocks. Cuz they can hear me callin'. Which is probably more than I can say about my own ears.

And as for the tagging of others, do we have any volunteers? Anyone? Any one? Bueller?

{crickets}

This one's for you, Mr. Happy

Dear Mr. Happy,

Sometimes a mother needs a moment to reflect. And be sappy. So I'll start with you. Besides your brother still needs attitude adjustments.

You were my first baby. Even though it wasn't a "planned" pregnancy, looking back I realize you were just what I needed. You came into my world and simultaneously reorganized my priorities. I like me more now that I am a mother. You'd have liked this me over the pre-mother me, too.

Honestly, I have loved every stage of your life. When you didn't sleep, your grandmother smiled with satisfaction at the payback I was getting. But as for me, I learned to hide the clocks (even putting electric tape over the one on the VCR) so I wouldn't know what time it was when you got me up (over and over again, on many nights). All you seemed to want was to be rocked and held. And after 9 months of being right under my breasts, it felt good to have you so close again. I can still hear the squeak of the rocking chair, feel the warmth of the blankets, and smell that sweet baby-clean scent that makes people swoon. With mixed emotions, I have to admit I miss those long, long nights.

When your brother came along two years later, you instantly seemed so much bigger. So much older. And I'm afraid in return, I lost a lot of patience. I remember thinking "if I could have just one day where no one cries, I'd be happy." And that day came and went and I didn't notice. What I would give to have one more poop-filled, snotty nosed, I neeeeeeed my mommy kind of day again.

You, however, waited it out with seemingly adult-like patience. You always were my sensitive one. When I was sad or upset, there was no fooling you. Once, you even followed me around with a box of tissues. And I felt guilty for you knowing I was upset. I wonder if one day a wife will appreciate this sensitivity in you? I hope so.

You were only four when your father and I decided our marriage couldn't be fixed. We worked hard to keep things the same through these drastic, life-altering changes. And, overall, you seemed to be okay. Sadly, you did lose some of your openness by shutting out some people who wanted to be in your circle. But those who were in got the benefit of really knowing you. To the others, you seemed sullen, moody and unreachable. They just didn't know.

The years seemed to race by giving no hesitation to my thoughts on stopping the merry-go-round to take a moment to reflect. The pictures in my mind all flash in sync like the ultimate photo story. School, sleepovers, riding a bike, baseball, soccer, trips to the beach, braces, a trip to New York, band, driving, going to school dances, going to Europe.

Once, after Mr. Strong and I had been dating for a couple of years, he told me you acted like the man of the house. And I knew it was true. I didn't ask you to take on that role. You just did it by default and I worry it was too heavy a load to carry.

And while it hasn't all been peachy-keen, it has been our story. Still, your wisdom and patience amaze me. You are wise beyond your years. Thanks for being someone who will talk to his mother. Someone who never quit saying "I love you" even when his friends were around. Someone who was kind to all people. Someone who wasn't so into what was popular. Basically, thank you for being my son.

Love,
Mom

Trust me when I say the movie version would be better

As the saying goes, getting old ain't for sissies. This past weekend, my mother-in-law was moved from her apartment in a retirement complex to assisted living within the same complex.

It would be safe to say she didn't want to go.

About a month ago, we had all agreed to move her after many nights of her calling in the middle of the night wanting someone to come pick her up from the hotel. She never remembered how she got there. And she was amazed they had EXACTLY the same furniture as she did. Personally, my favorite conversations were the ones when she said she was in synagogue and how are you doing. Weirdly, the synagogue also had EXACTLY the same furniture as she did.

The plans were in order when my brother-in-law called off the whole thing. He backed out because she told him to fucking take her off his to-do list and leave her the heck alone because if you want to see crazy, move her there and she was going to show us crazy. And we had to agree with him. It sounded like a conversation of a capable, well-adjusted woman.

That is, until she fell. And didn't remember what to do. It scared us and we knew we had to do something.

So the move got put back on the schedule. I drove two hours to her apartment only to find her still in bed. Passive aggressive was the thought rolling through my mind. My brother-in-law met me in the parking lot to announce he couldn't get her to budge.

Ok. I knew I needed to pull some tricks out of the hat. Maybe something from my stint as a middle school teacher of kids with behavior disorders would help. Only I knew I couldn't call a principal or her parents for backup. I had to find carrot to dangle.

Me: "Mom, let's get up. We are going to have a girl's day. Just you and me."

Mom: "Is this necessary?"

Me: "Well, yeah. We need to get up and moving."

Mom: "I'm so tired. I just wanted to sleep in today."

The conversation continued like this for about 10 more minutes. Until I was willing to hang up the halo for good and get really mean reached the point of desperation.

Me: "If you don't get up, I'm going to go get one of the moving men to scoop you up and put you in your wheelchair. You wouldn't want to go hang out in the social hall in your panties now would you?"

This got her attention. Within 20 minutes, I had her pottied, dressed and in her wheelchair.

As we headed out, I offered to fix her breakfast. She quickly told me she was mad and she was not eating. Even when I offered her some bread and cake, she refused to eat.

Great. A hunger strike. There are already issues with her fitting into her skin. For a woman whose primary sustenance is cake and bread, she is skinny, skinny, skinny.

We first settled into the social hall. I tried to get her to talk about her past. About her children (especially Mr. Strong as a wee lad). About her marriage. Just about her life. But she kept expressing how angry she was at everyone. When I asked her if it was hard when she moved her mother into a nursing home, she said no because her mother was talking crazy and she needed the help. Ummmm. Ok.

In one corner of the social hall, there were women doing some sit down exercises. I tried to get Mom to join in. She was still seething about having to get out of bed for the move and not willing to give up the pity party. That was about the time she noticed the haggard looking woman in the red jacket.

Mom (kind of whispering but really not which lets me know that the decibel level of whispers is probably genetically passed on since I previously thought Mr. Strong learned to whisper in a heavy metal concert): "That lady over there is so mean."

Me: "Shhh. I think she and everyone else heard you."

Mom: "I don't care. She is mean."

Normally, I am a risk taker but considering Mom's agitated state, I decided to move her. Especially since the lady in the red jacket was now glaring at Mom. Plus, if she wanted to scrap, she had several clear advantages over Mom. Advantages like walking and being able to raise both arms up over her head.

We moved over to a table of older, non-exercising ladies. They all seemed to know Mom and expressed their concern over not seeing her for months and months. When she pouted and told them she was being moved into assisted living, they all looked at me and nodded while telling her that it was a great place to live. One of the ladies offered Mom a cookie and she refused as she was still too mad to eat (But don't you love the idea of sitting in the social hall watching the exercisers while nibbling on cookies!). As the conversation progressed, one of the ladies talked about how much she loved the sub sandwiches from the grocery store down the street. Mom agreed. When I offered to go get her one, she happily said yes. Deal! The hunger strike was over in less than two hours.

After several hours of conversing (we had several conversations over and over) and hanging out, Mom's room was ready. We spent some time getting her settled in when she finally admitted it wasn't so bad.

All the remaining things from her apartment are now housed in our garage. And that made me kind of sad. The random pieces of furniture and the relics are sad reminders of the life this family once lived.

And I am a bit sad I couldn't get some great tales for her children, grandchildren and beyond.

But we did get this fantastic bird. It was Mom's grandmother's show piece (I think that makes it a bazillion years old). Isn't it wicked!?