For you, a song

Today is the 80th anniversary of the official name change of Constantinople to Istanbul, so in honor of that, I bring you this:

With the Turkish Postal Service Law of 28 March 1930, the Turkish authorities officially requested foreigners to adopt Istanbul as the sole name also in their own languages. (from Wikipedia)

Isn't that lovely?

But what I really came to talk to you about today is our meeting with Diva and the therapist. We got some diagnoses. They are very exciting in a scary way. They say she has oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)*, impulse control disorder, and the biggie - psychosis with command auditory hallucinations. I was under the impression that they would find a place for her to go next, but that is not the case. It is our responsibility, or the responsibility of the "placing agency" (the ones who got her into the hospital in the first place) to arrange her follow-up placement. What a pain in the arse.

It's relatively quiet here. Sproing is bouncy as usual, but much quieter than he used to be. Twitch is home on spring break, and he's being all galumphy and grumpy. He ran out of Adderall, and that is not a good thing. There is some degree of confusion about his latest prescription. He had a script from the doctor, but somehow it was dated for early January. He says he just got that script from the doc last week. Weird. Stuff like that happens to him not infrequently, and I suspect he is the cause of much of the confusion. Communication isn't his strongest asset.

We're going to homeschool Sproing. It's our best option. With me in school full time I don't know how we'll do it. There is only about a month left of my semester, though, so probably he'll have "home school lite" until I'm finished. As of now the plan is for him to reenter public school next August at the start of his 7th grade year.

I have a test in that stupid Wellness class this morning. I'm going to look over my notes one last time before class, so toodles for now.

*Sproing has ODD. We've discussed that a few times. Sproing is the ODD poster child. I don't fully believe that Diva has ODD. She can be passive-aggressive, but I've seen worse. But ya' know, if a diagnosis of ODD helps get her some much needed services, so be it. Though I think the psychosis will garner more attention. Whatevs.

Oh look! Pictures!

Indeed and I did promise some pictures. These pictures were taken Monday, 22 March 2010, and chronicle the events of our exciting evening. OK, frankly this was the most calm event of the day, for Superman had recently returned from ferrying Diva to the mental hospital. Yeah, this is how we relaxed that night.

Pictured here is Sproing's new nightstand. The drawer there looks like two narrow drawers, but it's a single drawer. It has those little frame thingies that hold a tag to identify the contents of the drawer, kinda' like the old library file drawers. Cool, huh?

Superman unpacks the first box. I'll have you know that the boy and I went to the furniture store to get all these boxes on Monday afternoon, in a cold rain (well, it began to drizzle, but it was cold!). And we unloaded them ourselves in a cold ...drizzle from the the pick-up truck and into his room, which is at the end of a (not very long) hall. (Are you impressed yet?)
Superman displays the headboard.
But wait! What's this? Yes, in the middle of bed construction there was some rodent excitement. I've left this picture in here sideways because 1) I forgot to turn it when I downloaded it into my photo viewer and 2) I think the thing looks kinda funny "hanging" sideways and 3) I'm too lazy to fix it.
What the heck is this thing? It's too big to be a mouse, it isn't ratlike enough to be a rat. The cat dragged it in on Sunday (?). Superman opened the front door to let in the cat, and he had this thing in his mouth. The cat was much too fast for Superman to stop. This rodent was not nearly dead enough, and why the cat felt he needed to bring it inside is beyond human reason. It wiggled loose from the cat's jaws and hid under the china cabinet, where it lay in wait for a day or two. I don't really remember exactly when it came inside. Sometime over the weekend. Anyhow, both of the cats had been hunkered down beside the china cabinet, waiting for an opportunity to get it. That opportunity arrived Monday night. It got spooked or something, I don't know. Sproing saw it, the cats tried to get it, it ran back under the china cabinet. So Sproing got the broom and jabbed the handle under the cabinet, but very hesitantly. That won't work. Superman took over, and did his Superman thing. The beast ran out from under the cabinet only to zip under the dresser that is close by. So Superman swept it out of that hidey hole, and it ran along the baseboard to behind the back door. This was its fatal error, for Superman has a replacement door that he built, weighing way more than a door should, leaning against the wall behind the back door (I should take a pic of that too). The creature hid behind this massive bulk of door, and Superman used that door to, um, separate its soul from its body. Ewwww.
I tried to get a good picture of it, and here it is imitating a Dremel tool. Does anyone know what exactly this thing is? It had the long rodent tail which was skinnier and hairier than a rat's tail. Eh, enough of this excitement. Let's get back to the furniture.
Superman diligently assembled the bed while Sproing "helped" by sitting on his mattress playing with his PSP.
You may notice that the rails are very high on the headboard. There are three possible positions for the rails, and Sproing chose the highest one. Why? I do not know.
Here's the finished product, being tested by Superman. He's a tall drink o' water, as you can plainly see. We have a queen size bed with the extra length to accommodate his feet and his head all on the same length of mattress. Sproing has to leap and pull himself up onto his new bed. It's kinda' funny to watch, but don't tell him I said so. He seems to like it, though. He has slept in it every night, instead of moving to the futon in the living room. For a while before he left for his treatment placement he wouldn't stay in his room, but would move to the living room after we went to bed. On his home visits he did the same thing. Now that he has a nice big room all to himself with nice big new furniture, he seems satisfied enough to stay in his bed. I'm pleased.

I'm going to keep this post primarily to a single topic (if you count the furniture and the rodent as a single evening's adventure), but I want to briefly touch on some of our other recent issues, to be discussed separately as time and opportunity allow. I'm going to visit Diva this evening. Not sure how she's doing. Superman said the hospital called him yesterday to get permission to administer some anti-hallucinatory drugs. Very interesting. I will be posting an update by the end of the weekend.

It's Thursday and Sproing still doesn't have a definite plan for the remainder of his 6th grade education. Right now it looks like he will be homeschooled for his final quarter. All of the details are still being worked out.

And a quote for today:
"If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed."
-- Chinese Prover

Relief

This morning was a busy one. Superman and I both made a bunch of phone calls. He also had to work, so he did a lot of that, but I skipped my morning class (that indicates how serious this is) and a meeting with my advisor so I could get this mess settled.

It's amazing to me how many people will hear about a child threatening to kill her parents in their sleep, and say "Oh, dear. Well, she's on our waiting list." Please!

So I called my go-to gal, my hero woman at the kids' school. She's the one who helped us so much last fall when Sproing got all out of control. Sure enough, as soon as I told her what Diva said about killing us, she said "Whoa! We need to do something about that NOW!" She made some calls. Turns out that Diva's counselor with the state mental health agency was also making some calls. Superman talked to her this morning. I'd tried to call her but couldn't get through. Anyway, about 1:30 this afternoon we got word that there was a bed open for her at the psychiatric hospital in Columbia, the same place Sproing went to at first. Superman took her there this afternoon. It is 6:20 pm now, and I just got off the phone with him. He is just leaving the hospital and is on his way home.

He said that the intake counselor talked to Diva for a long time, and Diva had some very interesting things to say. I'll need to get some more detail from him once he gets home, but he told me Diva talked a lot about the voices in her head and all the many things they tell her. He and I both think that she will be gone from home for a good long time. We both hope so, anyway. I've been saying for years that the child is not right in the head. Haven't I said that here before? The girl is off her nut.

OK, time to take care of Sproing's needs. We picked up his furniture from the store this afternoon. Superman will put it together when he gets home, but Sproing and I are going to begin unpacking and de-boxing it. Pictures to follow, probably, unless I don't. (I'm bad about posting pictures. So sue me.)

TTFN

On the other hand

I have been sitting here for over two hours trying to get the gumption to write this post. I read some blogs, played solitaire, snacked on some Junior Mints. (I really don't like those things, but Sproing gave me a box of them.)

Sproing is home, things are going very well with him.

But that's not what I came to tell you about. I need to relate the events that have transpired concerning Diva. I really don't want to talk about it, but I need to.

On Tuesday of this week, the 16th of March, Diva got into an argument on the bus coming home from school. Another girl, whom we shall refer to as Q, had a camera and was taking pictures of her friend. Diva was sitting nearby, and accused Q of taking pictures of her. She didn't want Q taking her picture. Q wasn't taking her picture. It's a stupid argument and I don't know why they even got into it, except that they are 12 years old and stupid. Somehow things prevailed to the point that they agreed to meet for a fight after they got home.

Superman was home experiencing symptoms of a virus. Not too severe, but enough to keep him home and close to the bathroom. Diva came home, called a friend of hers to come over. She got the baseball bat and told her dad that they were going to play baseball. He didn't think anything of it. He had no reason to.

Shortly thereafter he left home to pick me up from school. Diva and her friend had gone off "to play baseball." We got home, she was out. I came into my office, Superman joined me and we were having a pleasant discussion. He had gone into our room at some point in there, came back and said that one of the pocket knives on the shelf in our room was missing. Of course Diva took it. She's the only one here.

Diva came home a short time later. I asked her about the knife. She said her friend had it. I told her to go get it, and she got all defensive and said she didn't know where it was, her friend had done something with it, I don't know what all else. It was all bullshit, of course. I felt compelled to follow up on this, get the knife back. We all got into the car and drove over to Q's house, where all the other kids were. I asked the friend about the knife and he said he'd thrown in on the ground "up there," indicating up the street. Show me, let's find it. We began walking; me, the friend, and a couple of the other kids. Diva was in the car with Superman, following us slowly up the road. I asked these kids what happened, figuring that we weren't hearing the truth from Diva.

The story I heard from them was quite different. I learned that there had been a fight. The baseball bat was intended as a weapon. The story kept getting worse. My dear darling Diva had pulled the knife on Q, threatened her with it. This friend grabbed the knife away from her and threw it far up into the yard where this event occurred. Once we got there the kids, including Diva, walked around and finally found the knife.

Wait a minute. My daughter pulled a knife on another child. The severity of it all was trickling into my brain. I got in the car, told Superman what happened. I felt numb. And scared, thinking of what might have happened. This can NOT be left alone. We went back to Q's house so I could ask Q about it. Her aunt was there, at that time the only adult at the house. (Mom was at work.) Q and Auntie and I discussed Q's take on the situation. I realized that we needed to have some authoritative record of this event. The police needed to be involved. I asked Q if she'd mind telling the police what happened, assuring her that I wasn't trying to get her in trouble, I just needed to make sure the authorities knew what Diva had done. She reluctantly agreed. Her aunt wasn't as reluctant about it. Neither was I.

I called 911 to report my own daughter. I really hate that. I hate the whole situation.

The police came, got info from everyone. Q's aunt agreed to press charges against Diva, for which I was very grateful. This is the only way she's going to get the help she needs. Or, looking at it another way, this is the only way WE are going to get the help we need. Diva was officially arrested, though since her dad and I were right there they filled out the preliminary paperwork and released her to our custody. It's what would have happened anyway. If they'd taken her to the station we would have gone to get her. This saved a lot of time and effort.

We are now waiting to hear from the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). This will go to court. I'm not sure of the details, don't really know what will happen. This is not her first offense. This is the first time DJJ will actually do anything, since the last time she was officially charged with a crime she was only 9 years old. Damn. Do you have any idea how hard this is to write? Do you have any idea how hard this is to live???

A lot has happened this week. Sproing is home, and I'll say more about that in another post. We have done a lot around the house to prepare for his homecoming. Diva has benefited from all the activity in ways that she has no right to benefit. But that's how things go sometimes.

That's the first of it. There's more. I'm going to make this a very long post and just spew it all out now.

Wednesday I had a message to call the assistant principal at Diva's school. She's been suspended for another two days, this time for an "obscene gesture" made to a teacher and another student. She also used a racial epithet in reference to another student. So as if I didn't have anything else to do, the child is home and needs to be closely supervised during the week when Superman and I have other things to do and other places to be. He took a few hours off work Thursday morning to stay with her while I went to class. I took her to my afternoon class. Oh, and Friday was a non-student day (teacher work day or something) in the district, so Friday doesn't count as one of her suspension days. We had to keep track of her Friday and figure out what to do with her on Monday, as well.

Superman took the day off work Friday in order to get ready for, then go retrieve, Sproing. I was gone to a conference all day. (That's a blog post in itself, which may or may not get written.) Diva hung around with her dad all day long. When I got home last night he was hanging tightly to his last nerve. It's uber-stressful spending time with that child.

Before we went to bed last night Superman told me to lock the door. We've been leaving it open because the master bathroom is the only functional bathroom in the house right now. He told me about an exchange he had with the daughter yesterday. She was playing with one of her stuffed animals and hanging around getting on Daddy's nerves. She accused him of being mean because he made her help him with something. She "listened" to what her stuffed animal was telling her, then told Superman "Fluffy told me to kill you in your sleep." WTF?? Has it come to this? He said "Then maybe Fluffy needs to go away." She hugged the toy, said he didn't, and I don't know what else. My mind was reeling too fast for me to hear what else he told me. I got up and locked the door.

First thing Monday morning we will call her counselor, our counselor, and another woman who's working to get her set up with services through the state. I may talk to the case manager at her school, too. Is there anyone else I should call? DJJ, maybe. We haven't heard from them yet, even though the whole arrest thing went down four days ago.

I haven't told anyone in my family about the whole thing. Light knows everything except the part about killing us in our sleep. She's gonna freak when she reads this. I don't know what else to tell her. I want to tell her to calm down, everything will be OK. We're taking care of things. Well, we are, sort of, as much as we know how. Superman told his parents and siblings. They're freaking out, and are afraid Diva really will harm us. He will go next weekend to see his family and is taking the devil-child with him. His sister, sister-in-law, and mother have agreed to take turns watching her. Hell, she might not even be living here by next weekend. She might be in the loony bin where she belongs.

I'm very tired. I slept about 7 hours last night, was awake for 3 or 4 hours, then took a 5 hour nap. It's not quite 10:00 and I'm exhausted. I have a major portion of my research paper to write before Monday. I'd planned to start that today, but I've either slept, avoided writing about Diva, or written about Diva instead. And now I'm sleepy again. Think I'll sleep now and write tomorrow.

My goodness

Howdy! It's been a little while. I mean to write more frequently, but stuff happens. I tend to not use my time as wisely as I should, and that causes some of these problems. Nevertheless, I'm taking this opportunity to give you a brief update. It will be brief because I have part of a research paper to write before I go to bed tonight.

Big good news! Sproing comes home tomorrow! (Friday) He is ready to be home. He is very ready to be gone from that place! Superman will pick him up tomorrow afternoon. We have been getting the place ready for him. We decided just this morning to switch bedrooms for him and Diva. All her stuff is out of her old room, and she has scrubbed the floor. I moved a few of his things into that room, but there isn't much to move. Superman will move his bureau, hopefully tomorrow. The big surprise for him is new beds. We picked them out today, and they'll be in Saturday. I'll have to take a picture. The old bed he had, the one Superman made for him, has been "repurposed." It's now in Light's room being used as a work table and storage shelf. We bought two nice twin beds and the night stand that matches. We don't have mattress and box spring for them yet, but that's on Superman's list of things to do tomorrow. He's taking the day off to take care of stuff and get the boy.

I will be at a conference tomorrow. It's the Bodies of Knowledge symposium hosted by University of South Carolina (USC) Upstate, in Spartanburg. It's sponsored by the USC Upstate Center for Women's and Gender Studies. Light and I are going, so it'll be a good mom-daughter time, too. The affair ends in the afternoon, so I'll drive back home to (belatedly) welcome Sproing in the evening.

Let's make this post all good news. That being the case, I can't mention Diva any more than I already have. I may post later this weekend to give you the not-good news about her.

Moving on... Let's talk about school. We had a critique in my art class today. Yeah, it's about two weeks late. Anyway, my piece received a very favorable critique. The instructor said that when I told him my plans for my cabinet, he was afraid it would look very tacky. (He only said that today. I hadn't known.) He is pleased to see that it is by no means tacky. Actually, there were a lot of nice things said about the work. I'm happy.

Monday I took the second exam in my Behavioral Stats class. I studied diligently for this sucker, and it paid off: 98%! I made one small error of omission and one minor error of commission. I'm pleased. That's the class for which I'm writing the paper this evening. Or I will be once I get this thing posted. I'm about half (maybe less than half) finished with what I have to write tonight. There's another section of it due on Monday, so I'll be working on that over the weekend.

We took the car (Eva) to the shop to have the brakes serviced. My buddy Ron was able to turn the rotors (or whatever he did) and get her done in one day, and for only $68! We were pleased. The brakes have been a bit jittery of late. What with Sproing being "in placement" for the last 5 months, we have driven a lot of miles in that little car. It's a 140 mile round trip to visit him, and we have made that trip at least twice a week almost every week since the beginning of October. It's been a good little car. The thing has probably paid for itself in fuel savings over what we used to drive. Do you remember Big Bertha, our 15 passenger van? She died a slow grueling death last year. It cost more than three times as much to drive Bertha than it does to drive Eva. It's all good.

OK, I've procrastinated enough for now. Time to get back to my research paper. TTFN!

I'm getting better

I feel better.

(cliche, I know)

Not well, exactly, but much better than yesterday. It was a good call, methinks, to stay in bed all day. I'm still very dizzy, but haven't had any cold medicine since early last evening. I slept most of the night without it. My lungs are still a bit touchy, but on the mend.

If I go ahead and allow myself to be sick when these things come upon me, I'm sick then I get better. I know of too many people who pushed themselves when they should have stayed abed who ended up doing permanent damage to their systems. A fella who used to work with Superman did that, and the illness, whatever it was, attacked his heart muscle leaving him unable to work. His heart had a fraction of its normal function. He had no stamina at all, couldn't walk more than a couple dozen feet before he'd get winded and have to rest. It was scary.

If I feel well enough I plan to drive up to Spartanburg this afternoon. PFLAG and I'm not sure what other organizations are sponsoring a screening of the movie Out In the Silence this evening there in Spartanburg.

Next week, if all goes according to plan, I will be in Spartanburg again for the USC Upstate Women's Studies' sponsored Bodies of Knowledge Symposium. I went a couple of years ago, but missed last year. That symposium was one of the factors that motivated me to go back to school. I hope it's as inspirational as it was before. I need some inspiration and direction for my academic and/or vocational path.

Superman and I had a good talk the other night about moving away from here. There are many many many many little details that we must address in order to make it a reality. Most of these details involve finishing up home-improvement projects around the house. We're both good at starting things, but not so good with follow-through. We need to finish whipping this house into shape and put it on the market. We're going to have to hire out a few jobs, but that's a good thing. I hope.

We are trapped here, in a sense. Superman has a good job with a good company. He likes it, he's good at it, and he's got very good insurance. He works for a pharmaceutical company, and one of the benefits is free prescription drugs. Any prescription, any brand, we get it free. Amazing, really. Twitch and I take some expensive psych drugs. Superman told me that our prescription drugs cost around $1200/month, give or take, depending on stuff. I don't think we could afford that if the whole thing came out-of-pocket, not without some fancy dancing, budget-wise.

Where we want to move, probably New England or slightly south of there, has a higher cost of living than we have here. What will that do? It depends on a bunch of stuff, like what kind of salary he can find, what kind of school/work situation I'm in, housing expenses, etc. It gets scary, I get overwhelmed, and I decide to think about it tomorrow. Really, though, we need to break it down into manageable chunks, do some research, and come up with a plan. That's on the agenda for another discussion, coming soon.

In the meantime, I have another exam in my Behavioral Stats class on Monday. Study study study!

Ramblings

I have a cold or something like it. My lungs are tight, I'm coughing, but only a little bit. I'm afraid to cough too much. I can tell that my glands are swollen, and my ears are pretending to be stopped up. The headache, it hurts.

This is the first time I've been sick in over a year. I missed class today, and I haven't missed a class because of illness since I started back to school last January.

"Nite time multi-symptom cold and flu relief" is full of teh dizzy. I'm not sure if it makes me feel any better, but it makes me feel different in a very dizzy sense.

Watched another bad gay movie today. There was really no acting in it at all. I looked. Handsome guys, though. All of the actors, all three of them, had very nice teeth. That's the take-home message I got from this movie.

A note about my seatbelt use: I almost always wear my seatbelt. Occasionally, on some of the less traveled roads in town, I won't. The trip from home to school is short and every so often I won't wear the seatbelt on that trip. I always wear my seatbelt when I drive on the major thoroughfares in town (because this town is full of crazy drivers) and whenever I drive out of town or on a long trip.

"Thoroughfare" as a word is entirely too long. "Occasionally" does not like to be correctly spelled. I like typing with an application that incorporates spell-check features. When I'm writing by hand, my fingers do not do that.

Today is my baby brother's birthday. I'm impressed that I remembered. For some reason I can remember our other brother's birthday, but the youngest brother's birthday doesn't stick as well in my brain. At any rate, I called him today. We talked for maybe 10 minutes. This is how I know we're getting old: we talked about colonoscopy prep. This is how I know we will be forever young: we laughed about funny pooping noises.

If there was anything else I meant to say, it will have to wait until next time. I'm finished for now.

Open question

Does your state have seatbelt laws, in which drivers (and maybe passengers) are required to wear seatbelts?

What is your opinion of mandatory seatbelt use?

I only ask because...

I wasn't wearing my seatbelt as I left the parking lot at school this morning and Mr. Bluelights pulled me over. This does not thrill me. Yes, I understand the benefits of wearing seatbelts, I understand that seatbelts save lives, I understand that the law is in place allegedly to protect people from serious injury or death, or something like it. It also violates my personal freedom.

For the record, I wear my seatbelt most of the time, but occasionally I don't. Sorta depends on my level of I-don't-give-a-fuck-edness.

So, what say you?

P.S. It's a $25 fine.

Some thoughts for the day

The education system? It's a big game. It has rules. Play by the rules and you get the prize. Some rules relate to chunks of information, some rules are social in nature. Public education for children, the K-12 years, is mostly about social rules. College has social rules, but has a stronger emphasis on getting the facts correct. Small victories receive small prizes - that B I got on the test. Larger victories, the compilation of the small ones, get a bigger prize; the grade for the course and academic credits applied toward graduation. The grand prize is graduation and the diploma.

It's an illusion, but a very convincing one. Upon graduation one must come to the realization that it was all a game, and that game is over. What's next? Work, probably, unless you choose to jump back in the game for graduate school. Work, career, the corporate world is another game, but one with different rules. As I understand it, there is less commonality between the academic game and the career game than any student wants to admit. Many skills developed in academia don't translate well into the workplace. That's a generalization, and some highly technical jobs relate more to academic skills than other less technical pursuits. In many jobs, the social rules are most important.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today is the last day of spring break. I had a good break, lots of stuff happened that I would tell you about except I don't have time right now. Indigo visited from Saturday evening until Wednesday morning. That was nice. I did a small crochet project of which I'm kinda proud. I will take a picture and post it later, but you may have to remind me. Right now I have a bunch of school work to do. I didn't attend to my studies over the week as I should have. There is a good chunk of work to do before 2:15 tomorrow, when a bunch of stuff is due in my behavioral stats class. Argh! I don't have that burning desire to perform in this class. The prof, though a nice lady, isn't overly inspirational. The experiment we're working on is only mildly interesting, and I am losing interest the further into it we go. I have a stack of research articles to skim through, and a few paragraphs of Important Research Findings to write. It's all made-up bullshit, and I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to do it.

This afternoon we will drive up to see Sproing and have a family therapy session with his counselor. I can't skip this. We will be discussing plans for his return home. He will probably be moving back home later this month. As much as I miss him, I'm used to him not being here. Things are calmer without him here. I want him home again, but at the same time I like him being away. It's a conundrum. That boy has been an conundrum in my life for a long time. I love him, he's a precious young man. I'm excited about his progress and eager to be a part of his transformation into manhood. I need to hold onto that thought, as it propels me forward.

Almost two weeks ago now I had lunch with Mel. I meant to write about it much sooner than now. He was in the area visiting family, and he came into town to meet me for lunch. I had a great time. It's so affirming to meet bloggers and have so much to share, having already established something of a relationship through the blogosphere. I very much enjoyed visiting with Mel. He's a great guy.

~~~~~~~

Emotionally, I've been all over the place. I'm satisfied, I'm upset, I'm distracted, I'm deeply depressed, I'm pleased, I'm ... everywhere. I hate this emotional roller-coaster. I'm unsettled, I guess is the heart of the matter.

OK, time to do other things. Don't know how much I'll be able to read blogs or write here in the next few weeks. After spring break the pressure is on with the school work. Lots and lots of games to play, tricks to perform before the end of the semester. I think we've got about 6 more weeks of this crazy shit, and it gets crazier the closer we come to the end. Aw, shit.