Why is it?

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For the record, my Superman has more realistic bulges; not so many in the outer extremities, and a nice one where it counts.

More criminal behavior

I know it's going to be a bad day when I am roused from my sleep because there's a police officer at the front door who needs to talk to me about my children.

I have tried to resist writing about the children recently. I'm tired of listening to myself whine and rant about them, and I imagine that at least some of you are, too. Isn't there anything happening in my life that doesn't involve Diva and Sproing's misbehavior?

What follows is some detail of the criminal activity the two of them have committed over the last two days. Continue or not, as you wish.

The dear elderly lady who lives next door (to our north) is entertaining family guests this week. Her son and his wife and children are visiting from Arkansas. I'm a bit confused about what's happening, but today their baby daughter had to undergo surgery in Greenville, the next city north of us. I'm not sure if the baby got sick after they got here, or if they came for that purpose. Anyway, they have two sons who are close in age to Diva and Sproing, and our kids have been playing with the boys for the past two days.

I took some time yesterday to get away from here. I drove to Charlotte to take care of some business with Twitch and to meet a blog buddy for dinner. Actually, the business I had with Twitch could have been conducted through the postal service, but I kinda wanted to see him anyway. My primary motivation for driving up there, though, was the chance to meet Dave. It was fantastic. He's fabulous. And yesterday I felt very good about taking that time to do something fun for myself.

Today, however, I regret being gone. Perhaps if I had been here, the kids wouldn't have ... Oh, I can "if" all day. It's useless.

Getting to the point: Yesterday my children stole $300 from the family visiting next door. Of course the kids denied it, and blamed the theft on one of the sons in the family. The father came over last night to talk to Superman about it. I wasn't home from Charlotte yet, so Superman got to deal with it by himself, again. He dragged the kids out of bed to grill them about the money. They gave him nothing but lies. Superman was sound asleep when I got home last night, but he told me about the incident this morning before he went to work.

At approximately 8:40 this morning there was a knock on my bedroom door. Sproing was there to tell me about the police officer at the front door who needed to talk to me. I got up, got dressed, took a piss, and went to face the law. I figured he was here to discuss the missing money. I was wrong.

The officer informed me that the next-door neighbor to our south (yes, the other neighbor) had observed Diva and Sproing throwing rocks at the house on the other side of her house. There were some broken windows on that woman's house. (Trying to keep the details straight: two houses down, to the south of us, are the broken windows. The woman next door, to our south, saw our kids throwing the rocks.) The victim of the vandalism called the police about it, hence Mr. Police Officer standing on my doorstep.

The officer had been lecturing Diva and Sproing about the criminal nature of their deeds. He gave me the details, telling me about possible repercussions with the law. If the victim files official juvenile offense charges, their case will go into the judicial system in some manner. A hearing? Definitely a record of the offense, with possible incarceration in the juvenile detention center. I am not sure of the details, but I will learn all about them if we go that route, won't I?

Then Mr. Police Officer explained to me (what I already knew) that as the legal guardian, I am legally responsible for their actions, since they are minors. (Minors. Hell, they are only 11 years old!) This baby Police Officer (he's in his 20s, I'm pretty sure) started blaming me for their behavior, in not so many words. He was somewhat subtle about it. He said that as their parent I am responsible to keep track of them all the time, make sure I know where they are and what they are doing at all times. I tried to tell him that we've had trouble with them, that we are getting them psychological counseling, that they sneak out, break our rules, etc. He kept "ma'am"-ing me, which made me want to dope smack him. "Well, ma'am, it's your responsibility to keep them under control." He has a point. Technically he is correct. He did his damnedest to make me feel like shit, like it was my fault that they had the freedom to walk around outside.

I called Superman. In tears. Tried to tell him about it, but I was hard to understand through all the sobbing. He came home. I'm glad he works so close to where we live.

Now, the part you've all been waiting for, this is what we did/have done/are doing for/to/about them. Their rooms are stripped down to nothing. Nothing. Sproing's bed frame is still in his room because we can't get it through the door without taking the legs off of it. It has no mattress, though. He has no toys, no clothes, no bed. It's him and an empty bed frame. Diva's room doesn't even have a bed frame, because Superman took the legs off her bed a few months ago. (She kept falling out of bed, and the bed was high enough for that to really hurt.) She no longer has a book shelf, a dresser, desk, no clothes or even empty hangers in her closet.

I have taken away their clothes. If I simply tell them to stay in their rooms, they are inclined to sneak out. If the only thing they are wearing is Dad's old t-shirt, they are much less likely to try an escape.

He has cleaned the spots of gunk off his floor, and scrubbed out two really nasty waste baskets. She has scrubbed her floor with a small rag. They are each now sitting alone in an empty room. If they do as they are told and don't give me the slightest bit of trouble, they may have their mattresses and bedding back tonight. If I get any more grief from either of them, they get a blanket and maybe a pillow.

Light and I (mostly Light) have begun to sort through their things. We are going to donate whatever toys are in good enough condition to one of the local charity thrift stores. The same for clothing and shoes. They will each keep one, maybe two pair of shoes. Diva can keep her underwear, but Sproing's underwear is being thrown away. I'll get him some new undies, but nothing like he has. He likes to wear colorful boxers, and then wears his pants low so his underwear hangs out the top. I always tell him to pull up his pants, but as soon as he walks away he shrugs 'em back down again. NO MORE!! I will buy some tighty-whities for him, emphasis on the white. No interesting colors, patterns, nuthin.

School starts in three weeks. They need new school clothes. Here's the plan: I'm going to get some plain mid-weight fabric and sew some simple dresses for her, and draw-string pants for him. No pockets. They can't hide contraband in pockets if there are no pockets. I'll get some plain t-shirts for them. They will not have access to their own clothes, at least not at first. I'm going to keep the clothing, and anything else we don't discard, locked up in Twitch's now vacant room. They will get clothing on an as-needed basis.

Superman and I walked over to talk to the nice lady with the broken windows. We apologized for the children's behavior, and told her we'd get her windows fixed. He called me a minute ago to say he's arranged with a local glazier to come give us an estimate for that. We also told her that if she decides to press formal charges against the kids, we support her in that. She seems to not want to do that, but we told her the kids are habitual offenders, and nothing we've tried so far has made much difference in their behavior, obviously. So if they have to experience all the messy legal consequences for their actions, that might be good for them. Of course, that would put more stress on us, having to also experience the messy legal consequences. I don't know. We left it up to her to decide.

Now, let's go back to the $300 theft. When Superman got home this morning to help me deal with everything, he spanked their bad behinds. In the process of all of that, we reintroduced the theft accusation. There was lots of blame shifting and denials, but they finally came out with the location of the money. One of them (he said her, she said him) put the money in the linen closet under a stack of stuff. Superman looked, and there it was: three one-hundred dollar bills. He took the money next door to our neighbor. Her son and family were at the hospital with their baby. The nice neighbor lady was so thankful that the money was returned. Of course Superman apologized that our children are such reprobates.

I'm not sure what happens next. The kids don't get anything for a while, and will have to earn the right to have anything back in their rooms. They're grounded for the rest of summer break. The details still need some tweaking. I'm open to suggestions.

Update: 9:15 p.m. Both of the little culprits are asleep on their mattresses as of now. The great thing about taking the mattress is that the kids appreciate it more when I give it back. There were a few hours this afternoon when they didn't know if they'd be sleeping on the hard floor.

I'm so sick of this sh!t

I'm depressed. Again. Do you really want to read this drivel? It's not pretty. It's nothing new, either. Same old boring shit.

The summer school program Sproing was in ended on Friday. The grand finale was a field trip to the big amusement park along the South/North Carolina border. The little snot behaved so poorly that he wasn't able to go. After nearly losing his chance to go earlier in the week, by Friday morning the show was go. However, while waiting to board the buses, he kept getting out of hand and wasn't able to keep it together, so the director had to call Superman to come get him. Of course it broke the little guy's heart, but he did it to himself. My heart was broken, too, both for him and because of him. I don't know what else I can do.

Oh, I'm sure there are some "do" things we could try. That's not the point. I don't know if I have anything left to give. I'm broken.

I want to run away. I know that one can't run away from problems, because the problems are integral to the person. The most damnable thing about being by myself is that I have to have me for company.

I shooed Superman out of the room an hour ago. I am not fit company. I was about to scratch his eyeballs out, and he didn't even do anything. His presence irritates me. I gave Sproing the evil eye earlier for simply entering the room.

I hate this room. I hate this house. I hate this town, this state. Although I like being back in college, this particular college grates on my nerves.

I am dying inside.

Educational Travesty

My online economics class has been discussing the issue of immigration and illegal immigration this week. For reference, the instructions are thus:

Please address the following issues in your original posting:

1. Summarize at least one positive economic impact of immigration.

2. Summarize at least one negative economic impact of immigration.

3. Discuss the potential impacts of immigration on poverty levels in the United States. Will immigration impact certain demographic groups in the United States more than others? Explain.

I posted my bit Monday evening. We're supposed to check back, and to read through the other entries and respond if we have something to add. It's supposed to be a discussion, you know.

Well, there are some things I just can't respond to. I present two examples. The first is from one of the students, the second is from another student in reply to the first. (WARNING: painful abuse of the English language)

1. One positive economic impact of immigration has had is that immigrates have boast store sales when they buy items and this helps the economy because it produces more money for it.
2. One negative economic impact of immigration has had is that immigrates are doing jobs that very low wages and because this many Americans that a unemployed cannot get this jobs because they would have to be paid minimum wage something which employers do not have to worry about illegal immigrates. Also, another negative economic impact of immigration is that more and more of them are using public resources such as schools and more immigrates are being arrested leaving many Americans to pay more taxes.
3. I believe that immigrates will impact the poverty line because they would work jobs for lesser pay than minimum wage. This would make employers more hesitant to employ Americans workers. And because of this more people who were born in American and also without high school diploma have no options for actual work and will live off of welfare.

I totally agree with number because at my job we sell more shoes an other sports equipment to immigrants then we do anybody else.They help us meet our sell goals a lot.

I can't respond to this. I can barely guess at what they mean. This is wrong on so many levels. Of course what I'd like to say (especially today, as I'm in a pissy mood) goes along the lines of "Get a F**king Clue! Don't torture me with this mangled mess. Learn how to speak, how to read, how to write." Superman wondered if they are able to understand the textbook at all. This is the book that's full of rambling obscure explanations.

Bless their pea-pickin' hearts, I suppose they mean well. I guess I should be grateful that they are in school and trying to learn. It amazes me, though, that these kids got into college in the first place. Or that they graduated high school. I have serious doubts about the quality of education in Sout' Caroliner.

And perhaps I'm being too judgmental. I can be an obnoxious intellectual snob sometimes. But really, this?

Today's word

expatiate

PRONUNCIATION:

(ek-SPAY-shee-ayt)

MEANING:

verb intr.
1. To speak or write at length.
2. To move about freely.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin exspatiatus, past participle of exspatiari (to wander or digress), from ex- (out) + spatiari (to walk about), from spatium (space).

Boy, does this describe me or what? Especially the first definition. I like the Latin exspatiari - to wander or digress. That is so me!

Next in line

I had to get that hairy-backed NASCAR fan off the top of my blog. I like this one much better. I have always liked glass blocks. Wouldn't it be nice to have a glass block shower like this?

I had an exam in statistics last week. We got the grades Monday. I got 100%! I'm thrilled. Then we started something new and I'm all kinds of confused. I can do the calculations, but the logic of it all has my brain in a strain. The answers sound something like "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Replace "reality" with "hypothesis" and that's what it is. The prof keeps saying that if the calculations indicate that what we've observed is very, very rare, then we need to reject that reality. It brings to mind the infinite improbability drive from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I think "of course this will happen!"

Interesting happenings with the in-laws: I mentioned recently that the sister-in-law (SIL) got married. She was in a loveless, lifeless marriage to The Lump for almost 20 years. Superman and I wondered, even before their wedding, why she chose to marry The Lump. I know why she stayed in the marriage, though. She, like the rest of Superman's family, is very religious. They don't "believe" in divorce. Well, SIL lived with The Lump for as long as she could stand it. Her mid-life review broke her out of that trap. I hope her new husband will be as wonderful as he seems. He really does seem like a super nice fella. And he's willing (yea, eager) to have sex with her. That's something The Lump didn't do. SIL is a very sexual woman. I don't know how she stuck it out in that dead marriage for so long.

The Brother-In-Law is eleven years younger than Superman. (SIL is my age, two years younger than Superman.) He went through a series of girlfriends over half a dozen years before settling down with his wife. They've been together for 5 or 6 years, married for 2.5 years (if I recall correctly). Well, this weekend Superman heard from his brother. BIL is leaving her. This is a shocker to me. I learned a lot about them that I didn't know. For the three or so years they lived together before the wedding, they never consummated the relationship. She's a "good Catholic girl" and wouldn't have sex before marriage. She promised it would be different after the wedding. You guessed it - there hasn't been any significant difference. Evidently they hadn't had much sex at all in the entire length of the relationship. I feel sorry for the BIL.

But wait, there's more. Turns out the wife was married previously. BIL knew about it, so no surprise there. What he didn't know until very recently is that she is still married to her first husband! She was going to get the marriage annulled, but never got around to it. When he found out she was still married, he told her, of course, to go ahead with the annulment and they'd get remarried. She has dragged her feet for I don't know how many months, so he finally gave up on her. When she told him this weekend that she will never sleep with him again, he decided that now is a good time to cut and run. At least he doesn't have to go through the expense and aggravation of a divorce. Their marriage is null and void anyway.

They have lived in the Raleigh, NC area. He's moving back to Chattanooga. SIL's new husband lives and works in Chattanooga, too, so she's there. The parents live just over the border in NW Georgia, so now two of their three children live close by. No, we aren't moving to Chattanooga. I've got nothing against the city itself (especially now that they've done so much civic improvement), but I have a LOT against living that close to Superman's familly. (I shouldn't say "never," because as soon as I do, I'll end up living in Chattanooga. Therefore, while the idea doesn't appeal to me, I won't reject the possibility of moving there.)

My dear Father-in-law is scheduled for surgery on August 3rd (I think) to have one of his kidneys removed. He is old, tired, not in good health, and is showing signs of preparing to die. He doesn't expect to survive the surgery. As far as I know, there is no compelling medical evidence to indicate that he won't survive. His spirit, however, is not willing. Superman is understandably concerned. I will keep you updated.

And that's all the gossip from the in-laws. Other than that, I don't have too much to say.

It's a southern thing

This picture is dedicated to my friend-from-the-south who is now up north, Stephen.

It's been real

New jobs blow as Scottish Widows axes 200

SCOTLAND will be dealt another jobs blow today when Lloyds Banking Group announces that up to 250 people are to go from its Scottish Widows arm.

I read this headline and first sentence in the Scotsman today, and phrase "jobs blow" made me do a double-take. Hanging out with you guys has changed my perspective on the world in a lot of little ways.

Hi. I've been away for a little while. It has been a difficult week, and I'm not sure where to start, or what I want to share. I feel emotionally beaten. Raw. A little unwell.

Let's take a glance at the timeline in reverse, or as I am able to recall stuff. Last night the mom of one of Sproing's friends came by and needed to talk to me. Seems the boy stole $60 from her wallet yesterday afternoon. This woman has been nothing but nice to him for the last few weeks as he and her sons have been spending lots of time playing together. I went into his room to ask him about it, and he had $5 on the bed. I took that and demanded the rest of it. He said he'd lost it when he was outside playing hide-and-seek. I told him to find it - NOW! Then I looked over at his table and saw some bills sticking out from under a box. The rest of what he had, $21, was there. I was able to return $26 to her. He had already given her $20, claiming it was from his dad. He and her youngest son had gone to the convenience store and bought chips and candy amounting to approximately $6. Anyway, he still owes her $14, which I will probably give her this afternoon and make him pay me back. Out if his hide, dammit. He's grounded, we took away his PSP, and a few other things the likes of which I can't immediately recall. Oh, he can't go to the skating rink for the rest of summer vacation. Of course he isn't welcome at this woman's house any longer.

And speaking of not allowed at someone's house, let me tell you about Diva. I have no direct proof, but there are allegations that she stole two rings from the home of one of her friends. Diva has not been allowed out of the house very often since we found out she's been having sex with some of the neighbor boys. (Oh, and did I tell you about the obscene text messages Superman and I have received from one of her "boyfriends"? She's used our phones, as she doesn't have one, to talk to this boy. He has sent her a couple of messages, one of which was a picture text of his erect pen!s.) (It wasn't very impressive, as I know you're wondering.) Anyway, the girl went over to play with these friends. I know the girls; they were in Brownie Girl Scouts with Diva a few years ago when I was the troop leader. They are annoying little bitches, as most young adolescent girls are, but as far as I know they aren't criminals like Diva. After she left their house, their older sister (adult, 20-something) noticed that two of her rings and a bottle of nice hand lotion were missing. I searched through Diva's stuff and haven't found anything. I asked her, and -shock!- she doesn't know anything about it.

Last Friday I took Twitch to college. His school is on a quarter system, and summer term started this week. He's living in a two bed/two bath apartment with three other guys. That's the housing system this school has. It's an arrangement with some local apartment complexes, and a fairly good deal, all things considered. Kinda' expensive, but the apartment complexes are nice, well maintained, fairly secure, and the school provides shuttle service to and from school and shopping centers.

He and I have spoken and exchanged texts a few times this week. So far he seems to be enjoying school and home life, getting along well with his roomies, and generally doing well. I'm pleased. I haven't noticed any signs of distress from him, and he probably wouldn't tell me unless it was something really big. He's not very communicative about stuff like that (he's a guy), so I have to listen "between the lines" to catch anything. So far he's either doing really well and/or hiding any problems really well. And I'm OK with that. It's what growing up is about. ["read between the lines" translation from Momspeak: my baby boy is growing up! I'm worried about him, he's three hours away from home, I know his vulnerabilities and am afraid he'll get hurt. I worry that he will lose his temper, or do something stupid (duh, he's a teenage guy), or that his Tourette's tics will become a problem with his roommates, or that the way he talks (screams, laughs, moans) in his sleep will disturb them. And all that other stuff that mothers worry about.]

The process of getting him out of here and into there was ... interesting. He's been so excited about moving there and leaving here. The two are different, you know. He has wanted to leave home to get away from the Demonic Duo for a while now. He says he'll stay at school and not come home during the summers. He will visit during breaks, sometimes, but he doesn't want to live here anymore. I have mixed feelings about that. In a large sense I'm jealous. I want to move away from these rapscallions, too.

Twitch's words and actions are at odds, though. All he's been saying for almost a year is that he wants to move out. However, I went into his room Friday morning before we left and his room looked like he expected to be back next week. From the appearance of his room, it looks as if he hasn't even left. There is still so much junk piled all over the place. His closet isn't as jam-packed as it was, but there are still lots of clothes hanging there. His dresser drawers are messy with stuff. He even left the pillow on his bed. On purpose. He also left his Calvin and Hobbes books. That's the most shocking thing to me. He loves Calvin and Hobbes! He's been quoting C&H for years. He learned to read from C&H, for cryin' out loud! And he left the books on his headboard bookshelf. I asked about that. Light asked about that. He got annoyed with us.

And he was annoyed with us for being in his room. He likes his privacy. How is he going to live with a roommate?? He felt violated, intruded upon, with Light and me in his room. But he's leaving his room; he's moving away. I intend to use his room for other purposes, in addition, of course, to keeping it a place for him to sleep when he is here. I was going to tell him about my plans for his room, but after his emotional reaction to me just sitting on his bed I decided to broach that topic later, after he's had a chance to establish his sense of place in his new digs.

And that's some of what's been occupying my mind for the past week. There's more, of course, but those are the biggies, I think. Right now I need to get dressed and go take my statistics mid-term exam. HOPEFULLY I'll get back here and post again soon. I haven't even had a chance to read my faves, and I miss all my peeps. I keep wondering what's going on in your lives. I've been so caught up in mine that I haven't taken the time to read about yours.

With fond regards,

Java

The ultimate payback for poor consumer service

The band is Sons of Maxwell, the lead singer is Dave Carroll. Hear his tale.

The story is explained in the song lyrics. Here is the short version of his explanation about the song from his website:

United Airlines Song Background (short version)

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.

Somewhere, possibly in the longer version of the story*, I read that he hopes to get a million hits on this video in a month. When I logged on to YouTube to get the embedding code, he already had over 700,000. As best as I can determine, the video was just posted earlier this week.

*Go. Read the whole story. It's fascinating.

filler

I want to post. There are all manner of things going through my head these days. I'm quite busy with school. Statistics (or as my father says, "sadistics") is currently being very fun. It's like a big logic puzzle. I get stuff wrong sometimes, but that just adds to the challenge.

Economics, on the other hand, is a pain in the tokus. The book is horrid. Obscure. Here's an example from my reading tonight. The subject is market demand for labor.

In such a case, how is the demand for labor by one firm linked to the demand for labor by all firms? If your common sense suggests that all that must be done is to sum the individual firm demands, then you are right. The procedure is quite simple; for each wage, each individual firm's quantity demanded is added to the quantity demanded by all of the other firms to form the quantity demanded of labor by all firms. In this way, the demand for labor by all employers may be thought of as the summation of the individual demands for labor by the individual employers in the economy.* **

Are there any economic wizards out there? Does anyone reading this post have an easy working knowledge of basic economic principles? I ask because I'd like an informed opinion about this text. Is it really as muddled as it seems, or am I the only one having trouble deciphering it? Also, can anyone direct me to a source that explains this stuff in a way that human beings can easily understand?

Twitch goes off to college on Friday. I'm driving him to Charlotte, NC where he will move into an apartment near the campus. He will have three roommates in a two bedroom apartment, unless he is assigned to a three bedroom apartment, in which case there will be five other roommates. I hope he gets a two bedroom unit. He isn't the easiest guy to live with. "Quirky" doesn't come close to describing him. "Twitchy" does, though. He talks to himself very loudly, carrying on involved conversations with himself. He talks in his sleep, very loudly. And...

Well, this is all about him growing up and learning to survive in the real world. I'm not going to worry (much) about what he might encounter. It will be a powerful learning experience, I'm sure.

I am sleep-deprived. I could write a lot more, but I really need to shut this box down and go to sleep. I have lots of homework to do tomorrow, then a very long day Friday transporting the boy to his new digs. I have stuff to relate about Sproing and Diva, none of it especially surprising and all of it very consistent with the track they have been on now for a very long time. The cats continue to amuse us. Light is enlightening. She cleaned the living room, mopped the floor yesterday. It was very exciting. Right now my butt hurts from sitting here too long, and I'm soooo tired. I don't know when I'll post next; things are typically chaotic. Just know that I want to post more often than I do.

*If you are interested in the bibliographical information, send me an email and I'll be glad to tell you. I'm omitting it here to a) protect the identity of the guilty parties and b) attempt to stay under the search engine radar.

**This passage gets more confusing each time I read it.