Monday mish-mash

As I sit in my nest I look out the window at the sunlight shining on the tree outside, just the top leaves are in the sunbeams now. There's a lovely gentle breeze, not too warm, not too cool, coming through the open window fluttering the edges of today's newspaper. It is early evening, 5:30 as I begin this post. This is just about my least favorite time of day, even on a gorgeous day like today. As the sun sinks lower in the western sky my heart seems to go with it, down, down, almost extinguished now. Once the night takes over and there is nothing left of sunlight except the faint traces of color on the western horizon, then I get a second wind and can work on into the night. But right now I am all sadness. It isn't a specific sadness, I can't tell you what I'm upset about, but I feel as though I'm about to cry. 

I had another interesting conversation with Twitch on the way home from school this afternoon. Almost every conversation with Twitch is at least interesting, quite often surreal. Nevertheless,we saw the school bus that comes through this neighborhood, the one he would ride if I wasn't such a softy to take him to and from school. He rode that bus once or twice when we first moved to this neighborhood. It was a negative experience. I waved to the driver as she went by (an acquaintance of mine, of course) and Twitch said "That's an awful bus." I asked if he refered to the bus itself or the students who ride the bus. As I suspected, it's the students. He said he didn't like them because they all thought he was gay.  HUH? I need more information about what you just said there, boy. He says there's nothing wrong with being gay (good, glad you agree). Is there something wrong with other people thinking you are gay? No, not if that's all there is to it. What he objects to is the way he is treated if they think he is gay. Ah, I begin to see the light. And he begins to feel the sting of homophobic bullying. Just a small taste, but I think it will help him to be more sympathetic to the plight of the repressed.  And it increases my general sadness.

On a somewhat lighter note, I thought I'd share with you the costume idea Superman has for this Halloween season. He did this to me Friday night. It was painful. Frightening. Shocking, as he rounded the corner and I was assaulted with THIS.

It's Dr. Plaid!

He defeats the evil foes (and everyone else within sight range) by blinding them with his offensive fashion sense.

His suspenders are red with little images of Christmas ornaments on them. He has a pair of rainbow suspenders that I think would be more (in)appropriate. We shall see. Though it is hard to tell from this picture, he is wearing argyle socks. He says he wants to find a plaid cap, something like these tam o'shanters. 

(when I was taking these pictures and groaning about how terrible he looks, Diva asked if I would delete the pictures, since he looks so bad. I told her "No, honey, I'm going to post them on the internet for the whole wide world to see.")

And while we are on the subject of frightening images, this is a picture Sproing took of me.

He wanted me to take off my glasses, so when I did I also shook my hair around. When I looked like this he exclaimed "Mom! You look just like a rock star!" and took my picture. Oh dear.

You may rest at ease now. I come to inform you that Sproing has new shoes. His wonderful daddy took him to get new shoes late last week, shortly after I told you the story of the poor boy being without shoes that fit. He is very proud of his new shoes.

When Sproing and I were goofing around with the camera the other day Superman was lying down like a tired man in the bed.

 

I took this picture because I like his feet. Doesn't he have nice feet? (To those of you who aren't averse to feet) I like the way there's a bit of hair on the top of his arch, and the feet are attenuated, alluding to a grace he does not possess. I like the way his legs flop when he's lying in bed like this. I like that it's cool enough for him to wear sweat pants. :-)

There is more news on the laundry/washing machine saga, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to post that. This post has gotten long and has too many elements to keep track of anyway.

Successful end to an otherwise "less effective" weekend

First of all, I want to let you know that I have been working on book six. Life interfered tonight. You'll see what I mean in a minute.

This afternoon Superman and S took over the cleaning detail and got the rest of the family involved. Superman said that getting the young'uns to clean the living room was more difficult than herding cats. He would rather do it himself, but he put the kids to work on it.

S and Superman worked in the kitchen. They are doing a good bit of deep detailed work. To translate: it still looks bad in a lot of places, but a couple of parts are looking better than ever.

C did the hall bathroom. He wins the prize for succeeding against the grossest foe. It was truly nasty in there. It is still ugly, but it's clean. That bathroom needs a major re-do. At least it is clean now. I'm so pleased and proud.

And S made supper. He baked two chickens and fixed some veggies. It was quite good. He's been a busy boy today.

Here is where the day, and my attitude, shifted direction radically
The young kids had been working most of the afternoon, and wanted to go outside for a walk. That's what Sproing asked to do, anyway. He left out a few details, including that they were going to hang out with a few other kids from the neighborhood. These other kids are a few years older than Sproing and Diva, and not very nice. I didn't know anything about it.

About 7:00 the kids showed up and I told them they needed to stay home now, it was getting too late to be out. We didn't communicate well; I meant for them to come inside, they assumed they could play with the other kids in our yard. Somehow things turned ugly. One of the other boys started throwing rocks at C and S's window. S went outside to address the situation, and this one nasty hateful boy, probably 13 years old or so, got very ugly and said some insulting things referring to S and C's sexual orientation. S told him off, said to go away and never come back. By this time my young'uns were back inside and I made it clear they were to stay inside now.

Meanwhile, outside S was still trying to disperse the crowd. The other 3 children were standing with this outspoken homophobe, 2 of the three agreeing with him and adding their opinions. One little girl, much younger than the rest, didn't say anything. S came inside to tell me all about it. While he was talking to me we heard something else outside. He started toward the door and I got up and told him I needed to take care of it.

I went outside and called the children over to me in the driveway. At first they didn't move, so I made my statement again with a bit more emphasis. (Can't you see this playing out? I make it sound so sanitary the way I write it. It was kinda' ugly; not nice.) They began to approach the driveway as I continued toward them. We had a little discussion. I told them they were too old, except the little girl, to be hanging around with my children. Then I said "The people who live in my house are my family. All of them. And I love all of them as family. Yes, the boys are gay. There is nothing wrong with being gay. It is wrong, however, to treat people the way you did. It is wrong to say such ugly things to anyone. Ever. You will not be playing with my children anymore, and you are to stay away from this house." I said this firmly, with conviction, but I did not scream.

They stood there, looking at me with contemptuous looks on their faces. (except the youngest. She just stared at me as she had the whole time.) I said "Go on, get out of here; shoo." The mouthpiece of the group said something snarky about not being a fly, then they turned slowly around and very gradually made their way down the street. I stood in the driveway and watched as they slowly retreated.

I went back inside and we had a family pow-wow. Superman had to go into work this evening, but the rest of us were in the living room for a really good family discussion. I told Diva and Sproing that they are not to play with those kids anymore. We talked about persecution, being nice, respecting others, not allowing people to get away with saying such stuff, etc. I told them they could, if they felt comfortable about it, try to educate their friends about how homosexuality is normal and not an evil thing. Or they could not associate with people who persecuted others on any account, be it gay or racist or whatever.

We discussed our basic three rules. 1) Respect yourself, 2) Respect others, 3) Do the right thing. The young'uns get teased a lot because they are black and we are white. They get taunted because they live with "faggots." We talked about how that stuff is wrong, and we aren't to do it ourselves. I told them to have enough respect for themselves to not hang out with kids who do that sort of thing. Many times they, especially Diva, will hang around with kids who pay attention to them, but treat them badly. She seems so desperate to be liked, she's willing to sacrifice her self respect. (This came up in the psychological testing she had last year, too.)

The kids don't get along with each other. Any of them. (Well, except for C and S. They bicker some, but they get along with each other very well. But that's another thing entirely.) Sproing and Diva fight with each other, and are disrespectful and nasty to the older kids. Case in point, when Superman and I went out last night they called us repeatedly to tattle on each other. Oy. Twitch frequently treats the young ones badly. He cusses at them and gets physical when they don't do what he screamingly demands they do. And he doesn't understand why they don't respect him. Yes, I addressed that issue in front of the whole family. He "yes ma'am" 'd me. We shall see. Everyone needs to show A LOT more respect for everyone else!!!! Get a clue, y'all! I focused especially on Sproing and Diva taking direction from the older ones when mommy and daddy aren't available. They seem to think they can do whatever they want, say whatever they want to the others when we aren't here. It makes for a tense environment.

It was a good discussion. I didn't scream, no one argued, they asked a lot of questions which I addressed with respect. It was a very positive experience, all in all. I hope they feel that way, too. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, very cooperative, when we were finished. I told the young'uns to get ready for bed, and they got right to it without complaint.

I'm feeling good about this. I hope this sweetness and light attitude lasts a while. At least for a week. That'd be good.