"Will you love me just a little, just enough to show you care?"

* I tried to post this Friday evening but Blogger was uncooperative. *

Empty promises are lies wrapped in ribbons and bows.

Superman discovered his credit card missing this morning. He last used it Wednesday night, and that is the last charge on the account. He called the company, and card has been cancelled, so we're good there.

I immediately suspicioned Diva. After lunch I went to her school, where her guidance counselor brought her up from class to the resource officer's office. He's a deputy Sheriff. I looked all through her purse and book bag, then we looked through her locker. No credit card. I poked around the house some but still haven't found it. Superman did a thorough search of the car. It's still missing. Diva says she didn't do it, of course, and she might be telling the truth. She has been known to tell the truth occasionally. She has also been known to steal things, including credit cards. I still suspicion her.

In other news, Sproing is home for the weekend. So far, so good. He goes back to the facility Sunday afternoon, when we will have a family therapy session. He is eager to discuss moving back home. He's made good progress, but I don't know if he's ready to come home. We'll talk about that with his therapist.

Right now I'm deflated. It's one thing after another with these kids, particularly with Diva now. She's an emotional black hole, sucking that kind of energy from me, telling lies, plotting revolt. I'm tired and I have had a shitty day. (about 70% shitty, it hasn't been totally horrid) Today I got so damned depressed. I just want to go to bed.

Sunday and whatnot

• To answer rjjs - I saw "The Blind Side" for my film class. It's a very good movie. I want to see "Precious" too, but it isn't coming to this podunk town. I want out of this town. Anyway, I finished writing the review for the movie and emailed it to the instructor last night. I only have the final exam to do for that class. It's being conducted on Thursday. I'm not going to think about it until Wednesday, or perhaps Tuesday evening for a few minutes.
• Diva was baptized in the Baptist Church this morning. Her decision. This has little or nothing to do with any meaningful spirituality on her part, and Superman and I both think she shouldn't have done it. I am in favor of baptism in general, so long as it's done for the right reasons. She did it because it was the cool thing to do, or perhaps because she was pressured into it by the zealots in that congregation. I dunno, but there's nothing to be done about it now.
• Superman's bicycle was stolen from our locked garage yesterday afternoon. I was napping and Superman had taken the kids to the park. Whoever it was also stole Diva's bike. The friendly neighborhood police man came over to take the report. Who knows if we'll ever see the bikes again. I'm pissed. Superman is super-pissed.
• Our podunk town is conducting a podunk Christmas parade this afternoon. I'm not going, of course. My point, though, is that Diva gets to be in the parade. She has been taking cheer leading lessons at the YMCA, and the class gets to march in the parade. Isn't that lovely? I might send my camera with Superman so he can snap some photos. Yes, I found my camera.
• I started reading the material I need to know to write my journal article. Slog, slog, slog. I'm supposed to be reading more now, but I'm goofing off. Later I will deeply regret goofing off. It's the way I work, unfortunately.
• I spoke briefly with Sproing this afternoon. None of us is going to visit him today. We only have one car that works right now (the truck is "resting") and Diva "must" be in the parade. Eh. I don't have the 4-5 hours necessary to make the trip even if I did have transportation. Anyway, Sproing talked to his Daddy longer than he talked to me. We had a brief dialog, then he asked to talk to Daddy. From what I overheard from their conversation, he seems to be doing fairly well. Don't have that from the therapist's point of view, but we see her next Sunday. He said it was OK if I didn't come today. I apologized.
• That's about all I know. I'm going to go study some more.

Remind me again why I had children

Diva and Sproing returned unscathed from their field trip. I told you about the plan, right? The adventure is called "Sleeping with the Sharks" and the kids camped out in the tunnels that run under the large shark tank. If it weren't for all those kids there, I think I'd like that. Can you imagine lying in bed looking up at a tank full of sharks and assorted other sea life? Cool. Anyway, neither of my young'uns was thrown to the sharks, so I qualify that as a success. 

However, all is not rosy in kidlet land. 

Do you remember just a couple of days ago when I did all those good mommy things to get the kidlets ready for their field trip? For ready reference, I include the pertinent facts from my previous post:

In addition to washing Sproing's clothes on a special extra trip to the laundromat, I got all kinds of goodies for their trip. I filled up a bag for each of them with a disposable 35mm camera, a book of games and puzzles to do on the 5 hour bus trip, snacks for the bus trip, a white t-shirt for the art project they are supposed to do during this educational experience, mechanical pencils (that don't need sharpening) to use on their puzzle books, and money (cold hard cash!!) for tonight's dinner and the gift shops. 

Sproing at least was very excited about the bag of goodies. I don't specifically remember Diva's response. I thought it was a pretty nifty collection. For whatever reason Diva felt the need for more. Maybe she wanted something more high tech than a book of puzzles. Maybe she thinks other people will like her better if she has better stuff to show off. With her there's no telling. 

She stole my digital camera. 

If she had asked to borrow it I would have said "no." So she didn't ask. I discovered it Friday evening on a bookshelf in my room, nowhere near its usual location. I thought that was odd. I didn't have reason to use the camera while they were gone, so I didn't miss it. When I saw it on the shelf I suspected it had been borrowed. So I searched the memory. It was completely empty. No images saved on the memory card or the internal memory. I had emptied the memory card a couple of days ago when I downloaded that beautiful picture of Gregory. :)

My suspicions were confirmed by Sproing. He volunteered that Diva had taken my camera. And he pointed out that she had deleted all the images she photographed. Ok, I'm impressed/pleased that she was at least smart enough to do that. How sad is it that I realize her cognitive improvements by how well she hides her crimes? 

This evening I confronted her about the camera. I asked if she had taken it on the trip. "No." I asked her again, giving her the evil eye. (It didn't work. Used to work on Light and usually on Twitch. They had healthy consciences.) She was a bit hesitant in her negative answer and didn't look me in the eye. Um-hm. So I asked her a third time, and said "Say 'yes.'" She gave me that sorrowful pouty look and whined "y-y-yes." Did I not provide a camera for you? Did I buy all sorts of things for you to take on the trip, and for that matter pay good money to let you go? She reluctantly confirms. I walked out of the room. I figure that was a better choice than what I really wanted to do, which involved smacking her pout from her face to her toes. 

This isn't finished. There will be consequences. Our challenge, however, is to come up with meaningful and enforceable consequences. Any ideas? Superman and I are once again flummoxed. Any suggestions are welcome and will be considered. 

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In other news, my wireless internet connection is screwy. I was boogieing along this afternoon, emailing interesting missives back and forth to various buddies, when suddenly I noticed I wasn't connected to the in'erwebz. "Honey? I need your help..." Just one of the many reasons I call him Superman. We tried various things. I restarted the 'puter. He reset the router. Then the modem. Then the entire desktop system. (it's a dinosaur) Nuthin'. So I shut down and took a nap in hopes that all my problems would be solved when I woke up. Also I was sleepy. Alas, when I awoke 2 hours later I still had no internet. 

This is really bad timing. There is some really interesting juicy stuff going on with friends, none of which I'm going to tell you so don't even ask. That's beside the point. I was emailing hot and heavy here, and suddenly... nada. ARGH! My beloved Superman spent a couple of hours on the phone with tech support figuring out that the problem is not in the wireless router, but must be in the internal wireless card in my laptop. That's the way I understand it, anyhow. I frown and nod. Right now I'm wired to the router. Stuck here beside the big box in the living room, not in my comfy nest where I belong. I am thankful for the connection, though. 

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As I mentioned a few days ago, Diva and Sproing played their final soccer game of the regular season on Wednesday. Today was the first day of playoffs. Superman took them way out to the next town down the pike where playoffs are held. During playoffs they charge admission for everyone except players and coaches, so Superman had to pay $3 for the privilege of watching his kids play soccer. Tournament play in this league is single elimination. The kids' team lost their game this afternoon (Yippee!! ) so the season is now officially over. *sigh of relief* (don't hate)

There might have been something else I was going to say. I decided not to tell you about the gawd-awful mess that C and S left in my kitchen for TWO DAYS before finally cleaning it up late last night. Yesterday was wet and drippy and cool. Today's temperatures have been blessedly autumnal. My friend R from California has been sending me incredibly sappy "Christian" messages ever since I got back online. Another one just popped up in my inbox. Besides that and a few other even less meaningful trivialities, I have nothing else to say except goodnight. 

Goodnight