A quote and other observations

Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. -Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)

I exceed the limit nearly every day.

I had good day yesterday. I spent the midday with my little old dying lady (Hospice volunteering). She's a hoot. Her stories get a bit confusing sometimes, especially when the details change from her being the child in the story to being the mother of said child. She has some great stories. My favorite from yesterday involves domestic violence, and it's funny (I think, anyway). As a young bride-to-be, she took her future husband to visit her parents. He asked her father if there was anything he should know. Future father-in-law said "Yes. If you ever hit her, make sure to kill her with the first blow. Otherwise she'll kill you." Yes, my little old dying lady is a spunky gal.

She also told of a friend of hers. When they were both young married women the friend often appeared with a black eye and assorted other bruises and evidence of attack. When she asked, the friend admitted that her husband was beating her. My gal said "Why don't you hit him back? Knock him upside the head with a frying pan." Oh, no, she was too afraid of him. So my gal told her to wait until he passed out (he was one of those violent drunk wife beaters) then tie him up in a sheet. Then beat him. She said her friend took the advice and wasn't victimized by the fool again.

It's a lovely rainy day here in The South™. We've had high temps in the upper 70s this week, with some powerful sunshine. I'm glad the rain is bringing cooler weather. It's a perfect morning for a nap, which I intend to partake of after I hit "publish post."

I took Diva to the beauty "college" to get her hair did last night. C's ex, N, is a student there. He was sick yesterday so didn't go to school last night. Diva's 'do took a long time, during which I sat knitting and listening. Interesting stuff. One of the girls has become N's friend-girl, and we shared notes. I love hearing the rest of the story in the gay dramas.

I told you about the fuck buddy, right? About how he and N have been enjoying each other, but did I tell you that once or twice he's been here with C? Well, I found out last night that N knows that the fb has been with C, and N suspects (no confirmation) that the fb has been f'ing the Youngster who shares the apartment with N. If you need a reminder, Youngster and Other Guy are a couple. Youngster left Other Guy when C left N, but returned to him a week later.

So of course when I got home from the Hairy House of Gossip I had to bring C up to date with events. When he heard about the fb and Youngster possibly (no confirmation) twisting the sheets, he was highly amused because Other Guy, with whom he's been friends for years, would blow a gasket it he found out. I asked a few questions and come to find out that Other Guy is a stickler for the double standard. It's OK if he gets a little on the side, or if he participates in some group activities on his own, but he is totally not OK with his boyfriend getting any from anywhere else. Yeah, he's a real jerk.

C has spent a little more time with the fb recently, but not in bed. They've started working on a project together. The more he gets to know the fb, the less he likes/trusts him. I've been suspicious of the guy from the start. He reminds both C and me of C's first boyfriend, S. There's some ugly psychopathology in that basket. C has decided that the fb will no longer be a fuck buddy for him. A wise decision, imho.

I don't watch soap operas. I don't need to. I live in one.

So Diva got her hair done last night in a style that she requested. It's a black girl Mohawk; close braid (twists, actually) on the sides and curled in a wide strip from forehead to neck. And she hates it. The gals curled her hair very tightly, and she wanted looser curls. Thing is, those tight curls will relax in a day or two and be just right. If they'd curled them looser, the curl would un- in a couple of days. This way the curl stays viable for upwards of two weeks. Diva is only concerned about Right Now. She was a pouty bitch when we got home. I spent four hours and a passel of money to get her hair done up right, and she resents the whole thing. Shit. What a teenager! She seemed a bit less bitchy this morning. I really hope she has a good day today. Those middle school girls can be wickedly cruel, and have been to poor Diva in the past. I really do sympathize with her about the social peer pressure mess. I wish she didn't take it so personally, but of course she wouldn't be a "normal" teen if she didn't. As far from normal as she is in some ways, this part is in the textbook.

Mental Floss sells a product called the Baby Owner's Starter Kit and a Toddler Owner's Manual. Though I haven't read either, I'm sure they're quite amusing and possibly informative. What I don't see at Mental Floss is the Teenager Owner's Manual. I need one. Perhaps I could write one myself? That might be fun, actually. And possibly cathartic.

That nap is calling loudly. Hopefully I'll be back before too long.

Let me tell you about it

I have an "a" that works again! Believe it or not, the broken "a" key is one of the things I have allowed to keep me from posting. Sad but true. The "a" key isn't completely fixed good-as-new, but it works pretty well. I ordered a replacement, and it didn't work quite right, so I fiddled with it a bit and now it works most of the time.

In my last post I detailed the gay drama going on with C. Most of that has calmed down. He's much better now. Still a couple of areas concern me, but nothing that I think has a major bearing on his ability to function. He says he's not going to pursue a relationship right now. If something develops with anyone he interacts with normally, he won't kick it out of bed, as such. But he's not actively seeking a boyfriend.

The major news story in Javaland concerns Diva. For details of the present mess see here, here, and here. She appeared before the court yesterday (Monday). She has been placed on probation for six months and sent home. Being as how she's a juvenile, we her parents are also sort of on probation, kinda. We are mandated to take her to all of her classes, appointments, meetings, etc. She must participate in the activities, of course. We only have to make sure she gets there. She has to take an anger management course. I talked to her service coordinator today about that. I think it would be a good idea for me, Superman, and Sproing to also take the course. Sproing sure as heck needs the skills, and Superman and I can surely learn a thing or two about how to better handle anger. I'd like to know just what Diva is learning so I can be consistent with it, use the same terms, etc. at home.

I don't know all the details of her probation requirements. She has to go to therapy, which she does already anyway. I arranged for a different therapist, though. She never developed a good rapport with the lady she has worked with for a year or more. I hope the new gal works out better. Diva will also have an RPS worker, that social worker type who helps with life skills, social interaction, etc. I've mentioned before the RPS worker who worked with Sproing. He was fantastic. He still is fantastic, but he left South Carolina and went back out west. I miss him. He and I had that rapport thing down pat. Anyway, Diva will be working with a new RPS worker and Sproing is getting a new one, too. I get to meet both of them tomorrow afternoon. Wee-ha.

We'll also continue with the family therapist lady who comes to our home on Thursday evenings. She's great. We have learned to work well together, though she is yet another in an increasingly long list of therapist/social worker-type people I have to work with. Of course we now add a probation officer to the list. We have our first meeting with the probation officer next Monday.

And so it goes. And Diva is here. So far things have been mostly OK. She has copped an attitude with me a few times. She fights against the restrictions of childhood. She thinks she knows everything and I know nothing, that she can make her own decisions about every aspect of her life. Part of our job here and now is to teach her to respect authority. You know. Like to not hit a police officer with a broom stick.

I know she has problems, organic and inherited. But she also has problems that stem from inadequate parenting. Maybe. I think. We haven't been as strict or consistent with her as we should. We're too nice. Or something. Yes, I do accept some of the blame for her lack of respect for authority (and for me). Not all of it. But some.

Superman has a plan for us, for her, for now. She is here. We will do what we need to for her, to the best of our ability, and see how things develop. If she improves, if she does well, then great. If she plays the part of the good child for a while and then loses her shit, we'll call in the authorities again. In the short term, it's impossible to tell if she has genuinely improved. She's pretty good at pretending for a while. With age and experience, I hope she matures. I see maturity now that she didn't have two years ago. I want to say "of course" but with her we can't assume anything.

And Sproing got into a bit of trouble at school today for the second day in a row. That would be the day Diva came home and the day after Diva came home. Any relation, you think? He was disruptive in his final class of the day. Wouldn't stay in his seat and refused to do the assignment. I got the email with these details as I was leaving my school at 3:00. I realized that I had time to get to his school before they dismissed at 3:20, so I skedaddled over there. Horror of horrors, I showed up in his classroom! Yes, the dreaded mother came to school! How utterly embarrassing. We went into the hallway to talk privately. He didn't cooperate then, either. I took him home, the boy resisting all the way out of the building. He refused to walk with me. He followed approximately 10 feet behind me, looking all the while as if he was just walking down the hall with no thought to that strange woman over there. Whatever. Little bits at a time.

He calmed down a while after we got home. I sent him to his room, but he said he had to use the coping skill of going for a walk. I gave him 45 minutes to walk it off, then he had to be in his room. Instead of going for a walk he got the push lawnmower out and mowed the front lawn. It needed one last mow down before winter, and he did a good job. That kept him out a bit longer than the 45 minutes, but he was being useful and active. I stayed outside and supervised the whole thing. By the time his Daddy got home Sproing was pretty copacetic. He even did his science project that was due last week that we argued about this weekend.

Here's the thing: I offer to help. I give him good suggestions. But I don't know, because mother made the suggestion, he has to fight it. Oppositional Defiant Disorder. And middle adolescence. A deadly combination. He ended up retreating to his room and refused to do the project at all. And it was a simple project. Look up the rock cycle (whatever that is) on the internet (or in his science book, which I told him to bring home but he didn't) and draw a diagram of it on a piece of poster board. So he did that this evening before supper, willingly and cheerfully. But only today, not Sunday evening. Oy.

I'm tired and sore and emotionally drained. Time for this Java to lie down and go to sleep.