Charity of the Month - February

While I'm planning on focusing on one specific charity in this post (for which I hope you will forgive my blatent nepotism), the issue here is a broader one. Across the country, millions of people, primarily high school seniors, are applying for financial aid. Not only is this a difficult process, but with government loans in particular the road can be hairy at best, as last year the budget shortfall made students' aid checks, which are mailed directly to the schools, weeks and even months late. While direct scholarships are less dependent on governmental beaurocracy, with so many in need, grant and scholarship applications are flooding in to organizations that have been, in turn, affected by a downturn in donations. If you are at all inclined to contribute to an education-related fund, now would be a good time.

This month's focus is on a particular fund that is both hard and uplifting for me to talk about. As most of you know, my nephew, Ryan, died almost exactly three years ago, at the age of sixteen, in a sledding accident. As a junior, he was in the process of looking into colleges and taking his SATs, preparing for the full life ahead of him. His death was a terrible loss that we all feel every day. His twin sister is now twenty and in college herself, and he has two baby twin sisters who he will never meet, but who will hear about their brother all the time from those of us who love him.

To keep Ryan's memory and dream of college alive, his parents established the Ryan Conley Memorial Fund, a scholarship that benefits local high school seniors. Rather than focusing only on acedemics, its goal is in assisting those who have been involved consistently in community service, as Ryan was, get a start on their life, whether it be college, business, or employment with a community service organization. Preference is given towards children of community servants such as teachers, EMTs and firefighters. Ryan volunteered extensively at the local firehouse where his father is a member, and it was that unit that essentially rappelled down the icy embankment in an effort to save him.

To donate, or find out more about the fund, click here.

Ryan and his twin sister, Corinne, on their farm, shortly before his death.

The Outsider

I'm discovering that substituting is actually a very strange profession, especially when all of my previous jobs have involved becoming close friends with coworkers and feeling like a real Part of Something. It's very outsider-ish, a little like being back in high school, actually.

First off, the phone-a-sub school board computer system is my obnoxious boyfriend. It calls substitutes it favors - those who have put out the most, meaning the elderly women you see rolling down the halls, scowling, and who don't really work with the kids so much as Watch Them because they've been here for fifty years. The System will discrimiate against you if you turn it down too many times, and stop calling you, like that guy who pestered you for more action and then totally spurned you when you didn't put out enough in favor of the 'easier' girls who say yes all the time. Like a boyfriend, no amount of staring will make it call once it has decided it is done with you.

Really, you just have to pray that you'll be popular enough to withstand the ostracizing. Not with the children, who kind of represent the middle-crowd of popularity, the ones who are there en masse, but really have no control over anything. No, I'm talking about with the teachers. If they're not really enamoured with you, you're not getting any work, especially if the phone system has already broken up with you. If they're having an off day, or are feeling too lazy/sick to call the system and ask specifically for you to cover for them, you're out like the groupie who sits at home on Friday night when the cool kids forget them.

When you are lucky enough to get a date with a teacher's class, you're the big fish in a little pond, that person who the 'cool kids' saw fit to invite along as an equal, and in turn you feel special too, to have been specifically requested by someone.

However, you are still not Cool, which you are quickly reminded of when you need to interact with the actual Cool teacher-people, particularly in the staff room. You trot in for lunch with your lunchbox and drink, and sit down at the lunch table with all the cool kids, happy to hang out. Then, no one sits next to you, at least on purpose. They're polite, and will generally speak if spoken to, but most won't initiate any conversation, or make any effort to really include you. There are lots of in-jokes, and all sorts of plans for after work and weekend trips. You quickly remember, these are not really your friends. It's easy to be confused, but as always, the lunch room is the Great Strainer, dividing people into grape-like bunches of friends, and those lone little grapes who slide through the holes and into the sink. It's almost worse than actually being ignored, in a way, this polite aquaintance, because the substitute is the new kid, the one who will hear all the plans but never be a part of them, who will love the children but will only see them once in awhile, and who will go home not knowing if she was cool enough, this time, to at least be the one that the Cool kids call when they need something.

It's a lonely time. You watch others being picked by the Cool kids, and even work alongside Cool-kids-in-training, who are already getting their degree in Cool, and will beat you to having their own little classroom-kingdom. These younger people are, in a way, already cooler than you are, which is infuriating. Wanting in, and wanting to have my own little kingdom so badly, it is hard to watch others pass me by on their way to having what I covet.

Someday, I will once again have real coworkers, and I will be a part of something. I won't have the in-my-face reminder that I am currently an outsider. I will make sure to include people like me, and stop in to see them on their breaks, rather than walking by to talk to other people. I will spread the Cool.

Work, Already!

Why don't things work anymore when you buy them?! I am so frustrated! Two of the things I bought Patrick for his birthday didn't work now.

The first one was a Klutz book that was about making toothbrush robots. It seemed like a cute idea, and it came with two already-robotized tothbrush heads. One worked really well, the other not so much. Ten minutes later, neither one was working at all. It totally sucked, because the kids were really excited about them. I wrote to the company, saying that I was disappointed, and saying that I was concerned that now their company was getting larger their products may not be as well made. I got a kind of snippy email back talking about how that product had won awards, and people really liked it, and that sometimes one out of thousands of things won't work. To their credit, they did offer to send me new brushbots, so I have to send them our address and we'll see what happens.

Even more annoying was the microscope we opened up today. Yes, he's had it for two weeks now, but we didn't open it until now. First of all, it wasn't the heavier-weight metal that it looked to be made of - it was *painted* like it was. The actual parts were lightweight, and the dials were cheap silver-painted plastic. Second, it wasn't a plug-in model like I had thought it was. It got light either from a tiny mirror that had to be positioned just right underneath or from a very small lightbulb that was supposed, according to the instructions, turn on automatically when the mirror side was turned down and the lightbulb faced upwards. It didn't work AT ALL. The lightbulb doesn't fit in the casing properly, and the electrical connection doesn't function, period. It's a total piece of junk. It wasn't a really cheap one, either - it was $50. So, we spent all that time getting everything out, and getting out the prepared slides I had bought him, and he got all excited, only to be disappointed again. WTF.

The thing is, I know that there are going to be some people who would hear this story and say, well, it was only $50, what did you expect? I think we've gotten to a point where we almost expect things to not work at all, and companies know that, and play on it. If a company can't make something well, why sell it? It seems like a lot of effort on everyone's part on what is basically a bet that the consumer is so brow-beaten that we won't bother to return faulty merchandise. I don't have the receipt for the thing, but I do have my bank statement, and since it's the only thing I bought there, I'm going to print out the page and bring it with me. I got it at a small hobby store about an hour from here, and they seemed like the kind of people who will respect that and give me a refund.

This just goes right along with the phone and internet problems I've had this month. Things don't work, and the companies don't seem to care. It's totally obnoxious!

So, once I return that, I will probably go to another store and get a more expensive one,

Thanks for the Extra White Hairs

I find as I get older, the number of things I'm afraid of has gotten smaller in some ways, but bigger in others.

For instance, I'm finally not afraid of the dark (which took longer than usual because of that damn Scream movie, which I can't even think about without feeling all squirmy inside). I'm not afraid to be alone at night when DH is on a trip, and our old house is creaking. I'm not afraid of spiders (although they're still GROSS). Things like that.

The things I *am* scared of, though, have gotten larger and much more specific. One of those things is that we'll have a Home Invasion. I'm not talking about a regular break-in, where someone takes your stuff and leaves; I'm talking about the kind our neighbors almost had, and that I hear about on the new sometimes - the kind where a group of men break into the house seemingly for the express purpose of hurting people. I don't know if this is some kind of gang thing, or what, but it seems that I hear about that kind of thing more and more lately.

I was actually laying in bed this morning after DH left for work at 6, thinking about this, when I heard a noise that wasn't the usual creaking of the pipes. It was a quite sound, one of those that you almost don't even really hear, but it was enough that Baci, sleeping next to me on the bed, lifted his head up, too. I had just decided that it was nothing when I heard a definite squeak of the back door opening downstairs. I sat up, and my heart started racing. No way, I thought. How can somebody be breaking in WHILE I'M WORRYING ABOUT SOMEONE BREAKING IN?! It flashed in my mind that DH had left about twenty minutes before, a similar circumstance as the attempted invasion across the street.

At the sound of a heavy footstep in the entryway, I sprang out of bed and flew to Josie's room, intending to pull her into Patrick's room and barricade the room shut with his bed. I grabbed the door, hearing what was obviously a man coming towards the stairs, and flung it open just as I heard, 'It's me - I forgot my wallet' from the landing.

I'm telling you, I almost collapsed. I shut Josie's door and grabbed onto the frame for dear life. All the adrenaline flooded out of me, and my whole body went cold. I had to get back onto the bed and sit down. I was too scared to even cry.

DH apologized up and down, saying he knew there would be no way to get in without scaring me, which isn't true because if he had SAID SOMETHING while he was downstairs everything would have been fine, but I couldn't even say that. Thank goodness he said something when he did, before I got to Josie and woke her up by telling her there was someone in the house. I was just so happy that no one was coming into our house, making their way straight to the upstairs, where the kids are, especially my daugher who is starting to look like a Girl, that I didn't even care. It took a good ten minutes for my heart to stop racing. Even writing this has me a little freaked out again.

You may have noticed that I didn't mention any barking, or growling, from the dogs. Those damn fools, who bark all day at people, dogs and birds going by the house, did not ONE THING? Baci didn't get up until I did, and even then stayed with me rather than running downstairs. Delilah didn't get up at all. A hundred and fifty pounds of teeth between them, and not one thing! And it wasn't that they knew it was him, either, because that would have had them up and running.

So, everything else seems really unimportant today. If I don't get a job when I graduate, if the IRS charges us an arm and a leg this year, whatever, I don't care. My babies got off to school safe and sound, and were none the wiser.

Smarts

Just to make you laugh, my kids, who were off for three days following our last snowstorm even though the weather was gorgeous, are in school today, when it is sleeting and hailing. WTF.

Josie is actually at home for the second day. She has this coughing, snotty thing that won't go away. I took her to the dr yesterday, and it's nothing serious, just something gross. The thing is, she's perky and wants to go to school, but I wouldn't feel right subjecting the other kids and her teacher to whatever this is, so she's at home with me.

I actually am happy that she's been here. I love having her around. She's nearing eleven (hold on, I have to get out the paper bag... in...out.... OK), and she's so witty and perceptive and funny and just smart. I love to watch and listen to her. Plus, for an added benefit, she's still young enough to think that I'm brilliant and cool, so it's the best of both worlds.

So many of you have posted about your child's first kiss, or getting their periods, or whatever, and it got me thinking this morning about how she's starting middle school this fall. Holy sheet, people. It kind of wandered across my radar a few weeks ago when we were at the testing place for Patrick's magnet exam, because the woman talked about the middle school programs as well. She said that those of us with children in enrichment programs would be getting paperwork to enroll our kids in merit programs, which I take to be magnet-lite - they're not magnet programs, which she rather snottily said are only for the 'truly gifted' (nose in the air), but are still advanced, and we'll get a copy of our kid's potential schedule early as well.

I'm glad about getting her schedule early, and the merit paperwork, so I can ease into this whole thing. Josie didn't want to apply for magnet middle school because she wants to stay with her friends, who will also be merit, in her school. She would almost definitely get into the arts-language magnet program if she wanted to, but I respect her decision. With any luck, Patrick will be accepted into his choice.

However, I didn't appreciate the woman's tone about 'gifted kids'. "Let's face it, these kids are the ones who are going to get into the big universities. They're the ones who are going on to big things." Just the way she said it was so offensive to me, like they were better than other children and we were all in on some secret society, IF our children could make the cut. I have friends who haven't bothered to apply because they've talked to her and decided that they didn't want their kids to be part of whatever she's got going on and get big heads. On the one hand, it's flattering to be told that your child is Fabulous, but on the other, it feels like greasy pandering. It bothers me that someone in the dept of ed seems to place a higher value on some children while passively disparaging others.

So listen up, lady: my multi-challenged nephew will have a special place in this world, and so will all the special ed kids I've worked with, even if it's not a place you put value in.

The Trifecta of Evil

OK, to sum up, this has been my past ten days with the trifecta of evil - Verizon, Direct TV, and Best Buy.

Dear Verizon,

Since you are the bearer of most of my problems, I will start with you. Oh, sweet allure of lower-cost service and integrated discounts with satellite TV, I could resist you no longer. Your one-hour install took seven, and still isn't what I'd call blazingly fast. Also, surprise, it's not fast enough to use with Direct's on-demand service without kicking us off the internet! Don't worry, I didn't want to be online anyway; my classes aren't that important. Whose idea was it to have people say 'I'm sorry for your inconvenience, ma'am' every five seconds'? They are not sorry, because without people like me, they wouldn't have a job over there in India, and also, they're not trained enough to solve my problems, and invariably transfer me back to the States, so it's like being in the way station for hell, where the demons are politely apoligizing as they poke you in the ass with their ethernet cables. I'm convinced this is true, because the woman on your phone service is definitely the devil, keeping me in endless loops of button pushing and number reciting until, finally, fifteen minutes later, you tire of our little game and either a) hang up on me or b) let one of your lesser minions play with me via live chat for awhile before being a) disconnected or b) pushed onto yet another demon. I'm getting off the ride, and going back to cable as soon as I can get it turned back on.

Sincerely,
Steamed


Dear Direct Tv,

I understand that I'm carrying a few extra pounds, and appreciate your attempts to help me with that by mis-programming my remote so I have to get up all the time to switch between the TV and DVD. Also, you are definitely fostering family interaction by kicking me off the internet every time you start to download something from on-demand. Your incredibly slow download time, which I understand is via partnership with Verizon's 'keep India's techs employed' program, makes sure that my husband and I get up to two hours of no-internet time as you download movies at the speed of snail. I know you tried to save me that trouble by not leaving me the wireless adapter for the DVR, so I couldn't download anything. Finally, I can see that your office appreciates their quiet time, too, as the installer unplugged all of my phones to use the outlets for the TV service, so I couldn't call out or get calls in until I realized that something must be wrong, and found my phones completely drained of power. That did at least save my internet for a few days, as I played phone games with your customer service folks, who gave me all sorts of strange information (no, you don't need a wireless connector for the DVR, it's MAGIC! and (no, we have one where you can just use the outlets - it's MAGIC!) before finally getting me to someone who told me that yes, I do need a wireless adapter, and yay! It's only $90! AND, thanks to him for recommending I go back to Best Buy and get a new wireless router, because DSL isn't actually fast enough to use your service as advertised! So, thanks, Direct, for making sure my family is forced to be together by removing our ability to phone, internet, and taking all our extra cash so we can't go out. You know just what we really need!

Sincerely,
The Family that Does Everything Together, uh, Gets Sick of Each Other


Dear Best Buy,

Hello, dear friend. You were one of my favorite stores for years, with your shiny products and helpful employees. Sadly, I think you have one store that has fallen onto, shall we say, the Party Boat to Nowhere. I don't know who these lost souls are, but they know nothing about direct TV or, apparently, wireless networking, judging from the startled look on the face of the assistant (and I use that term loosely) that was listening to me explain my need for a wireless transmitter for my DVR. Yes, Dorothy, Oz has replaced the flying monkeys with wireless internet! I know I blew your little mind, but it's true! Sadly, the employee didn't believe me, and wouldn't get online and check, so I left the store empty-handed, to order it on the phone (again with the phone). I gave the store a chance to redeem itself later, when I returned to get a better wireless router for my DSL, and picked the router advertised as being $119 on the shelf. Imagine my shock when I found it was actually $169! I might have found out earlier that it was mis-shelved, but the entire department was too busy telling jokes and laughing to wait on any of the ten or so people shopping there at that time. They also might have been able to tell me that it wouldn't work with Vista 64-bit, saving me two hours' worth of frustration, but no matter. I needed the practice in non-explosive anger management techniques, anyway. I brought back your product, and you were amazed, but I figured you seem to like jokes so much, you would want to play one again on someone else. Have fun, and take care, because you and I won't be seeing each other for quite awhile!

Sincerely,
Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice, Goodbye You!

... one other thing

I wanted to put this in its own post, because it's important.

My friend L has been in the process of adopting Em, 2, who is in foster care, for eighteen months. Em doesn't live with L full-time, because they didn't find her until after she was placed with another family that happened to be friends with L. However, over the past year and a half, they have lived together for longer and longer periods, spending all vacations, weekends, holidays, birthdays, field trips, everything, together - just her legal guardian is still the other family, so she has to spend some time living there as well.

The case was supposed to be settled on Halloween, which is both L's birthday and mine. It was continued for three months, the judge said to make sure that there would be no further action by her drug-addicted, alcoholic, in-and-out-of-jail birth parents. The final court date was scheduled for the 31st of this month.

Two days ago, L got a call that the state has found distant relatives for Em in NJ. The entire process may fall through.

There's a meeting with this newfound family member, social services, and L next Friday. If it goes well, L still has a chance. If it doesn't, L could lose the baby who is effectively her daughter, and who has been calling her Mommy for over a year, with no chance of ever seeing her again, in the blink of an eye.

So, please, whatever karma, meditation, prayer, omen, spell, or balloon-wish you can send her way, do it. She's been crying, obviously, since she got the call two days ago. She can't have biological children of her own, and this girl is all her hopes and dreams in one little curly-headed bundle.