lust and terror in the suburbs

Been busy. Lusting after James Hathaway, trying to get ready for school, trying to get over a nasty virus.

This has been one of those insidious viruses that makes you feel nasty, gives you hot and cold flashes (yes, even the men), makes the children throw up periodically, and leaves you tired all the time with either a sore throat or a sinus headache. I'm wiped, but I can't seem to sleep.

I've also been whining about the intellectual level of the Bible Belt over on the MCT Yahoo group.

I was putting together some lesson plans for Grammar Town this morning when something terrible occurred to me.

What good is having knowledge if it's lost on 99.9 percent of the American public? I mean, outside of Oxford, does anyone in popular culture (or American culture in particular) appreciate or use good grammar and vocabulary? What good is knowing the right word if no one around us understands us when we use it?

Oh sure, we language nerds can delight in the well-turned phrase and let poetry drip from our lips like honey, but when you're talking about life skills, the intricacies of good grammar fall somewhere between understanding hedge funds and the correct use of the acronym "WTF".

Homeschool starts Monday, and it's too late to move to a more urbane city. Please help...

I think this fit of literacy was prompted by the writers of BBC's Mystery series of Inspector Lewis (and the dishy Sergeant Hathaway) in the town and college of Oxford. Technically, Hathaway studied at Cambridge, but there's something intoxicating about watching a show where one of the characters recognizes that a phrase in a book was "nicked from Sophocles".

But now, it's back to teaching a child who whinnies in public and doesn't understand the past tense. I had someone in the grocery deli line try to convince me that someday I'd miss this time. I didn't have the heart to tell her that there was a good chance that "someday", The Girl may be just about the same as she is now. If that's not the most terrifying idea I've ever heard, I don't know what is.

Ooh, you make my motor run.

I've been watching WAY too much Inspector Lewis on PBS. Actually, the problem isn't Inspector Lewis himself, but his sergeant, James Hathaway. Oh mama. James Hathaway makes my motor run. Big time.

Hathaway is a young, 30-ish detective whose childhood friend has just spattered his own brains all over the altar of a church in Oxford. Apparently, Hathaway had been in training to become a priest when his childhood friend reached out to him the second and final time about being being gay. Hathaway told him God couldn't forgive the sin, and the friend eventually just killed himself.

No one is cutting Hathaway any slack. The gays hate him for pushing his friend over the edge. Inspector Lewis hates him for not initially telling what he knew about "The Garden", a church program to "cure" gays. Hathaway has no one else to turn to. Then the person who is killing all of founders of "The Garden" tags Hathaway as being next to go. Hathaway is down to feeling nothing at all when he turns to his dead friend's only-ever girlfriend, or rather she picks him up and takes his wretched self home with her.

The power in this piece of video is that Hathaway is usually glib, somewhat introverted, brilliant, focused like a laser, and absolutely charming. Check out minutes 7:00 and 9:00 on this one. (In between the juicy bits, the "adults" are trying to figure out what's really happening.) Mmm.. Tasty!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQXTknUPuvU&feature=related


After a late, late evening with James Hathaway and a mighty fine, late-night tumble with The Husband, I was woken this morning by an autistic child whining loudly and insistently about being trapped in a sports bra that she couldn't untangle.

Bump.

Big time.

FAITH, FPEA, HSLDA, M-O-U-S-E!

What? Two posts in one week?! Umm. Yeah. Why not?

So here's the deal. I'm ditching my local homeschool group.

It started last year when my husband realized who I was supporting with my dues. The Family Academics in the Home (FAITH) Homeschool group is a local group, sponsored by a local Baptist church.

Now, mind you, this is not your mother's Baptist church. MY mother's Baptist church was grounded in scripture study, questioning authority, searching for God's mission here on Earth, serving the faithful, and generally trying to enrich church goer's lives.

This generation of Baptists -- at least in Florida -- believes in new earth science, the tea party, and general judgemental behavior. Seriously, I had to sign a "statement of belief" before they would let me teach a co-op class. They have a dress code that requires me to wear a swimsuit that "covers the cleavage and cleavage area". I had no idea they still made turtleneck swimsuits.

Anyway, this isn't the worst of it. In order to join, you pretty much have to pay membership in the Florida Parent Teachers' Association (FPEA). Their mission statement seems pretty harmless, right up until you go their annual conference and find that the seminars include topics such as "Teaching History from the Biblical Worldview" and "Homeschooling and the Obama Administration: National Issues Affecting our Freedom". I have YET to meet a homeschool speaker who doesn't spout this nonsense. You can't revise science and history to meet your worldview. Of course, they'd probably say that we've already re-written it, so they're just fixing it back to the way God made it. Or something.

Then the political emails from FAITH start. Support X candidate, they're pro-life and have been good to the homeschool movement. Sure enough, I look them up, and there's nothing about homeschool on their website. They're just tea party members. Out to make the world a better place for True Christians.

Now, that would be bad enough, but when you join FAITH, then FPEA, you're also supporting the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). These are people who are supposed to be our legal defense team if we get in trouble with The Man. They lobby in Tallahassee for homeschoolers' rights. Sounds good, right? Oy Vey. These people are also lobbying against House Bill 7115 and Senate Bill 1198: Minor Can Keep Abortion Records Confidential- Even From Parents Heh? What the hell does that have to do with homeschool rights? About as much as this I guess.

Anyway, they're tea partying, moral majority, xenophobic, homophobic, historical revisionist, creation science extremists who want to make sure that my husband is still in charge of my house.

Man, is it late at night.

Anyway, as much as I needed these women for support in my first two years, I really don't want to bend my neck to their yoke anymore. This year, they say that they're going to focus more on their proselytising, I mean, outreach and mission. Bad sign.

Of course, I should start a secular homeschool group, but the problem is that there are too many styles of secularism for this to work for long. The range goes from crunchy hippy unschooling moms, to classical athiest moms, to liberal Episcopalian moms who homeschool out of necessity and are only doing the best they can to get by some days.

I just don't need the drama.

Cirque de Mom

Hmm. I don't remember all that's going on, but let's see...

The mold decontamination guys came on Wednesday the 12th. By Wednesday, we had spent the previous three days moving all the furniture away from the walls, removing everything from the walls, taking down all the curtains, and emptying all the closets, trying not to maim ourselves in the process. Remember, we're both well into our middle-age years. ;) I packed up the kids and the animals, and my mom picked them all up at 8 am Wednesday. I dumped the last of the closet clothes onto the beds, and covered them with sheets. I stayed long enough to get in the cleaners' way, then left for my mom's.

The Husband came down to my mom's after work, but since the "microbial bomb" was dissipated by bed time, he went back home to sleep and get ready for work the next day. The Boy had come down with a sniffly cold, but the kids and I stayed the night, and the kids pretty much went to bed on time.

Thursday morning, I got the kids up, cleaned my mother's house, packed the kids up, and went home. I got home mid-morning, and cleared the beds so that The Boy could nap until...

At 12:30, I packed everyone up and took them to dance class. We pulled into the parking lot with 30 seconds to spare, and The Boy tumbled out of the car onto the 120-degree pavement. I told him to move his butt, and he started puking ice water all over the ground. I had one hand free, so I hauled his butt up off the ground before the puke ran down his shorts legs, he finished puking, and we hauled it into dance class. The poor bystanders were looking at me like, "Wha? Oh well, looks like she's got it under control..."

A quick trip to the library followed, just to pick up a few books I had reserved for homeschool. The Boy got half-way to the door and collapsed on the ground. I berated him for being a divo, but no amount of persuasion could shift him either toward the library or the car. I finally packed it in, and he agreed to go home.

Whew! I don't remember what was for dinner, but you know I didn't cook it.

We've spent the past days unpacking. I swear, if we had moved houses, it wouldn't have been much more work. While The Boy's bunk bed was moved, I painted his room. Bright. Yellow. Now when you stand in the hallway, a golden glow comes from his room, and The Girl's room looks grey. More work. *sigh*

The plus side of all this is that I've been able to figure out just how much shit we have accumulated over the past eight years and compare it to the amount of shit we brought in boxes into the house eight years ago. I moved the clothes rack in the walk-in closet up a foot and added a new rack below it, so now our clothes take up half the room they used to. Then I put up shelves on the other end of the closet for The Boxes. $250 later, we have enough room to neatly pack in all the shit.

And on the plus, plus side of all this, I got to buy myself a NEW POWER TOOL! Happy birthday to me!!

Now I have two weeks to finish the house projects, take the kids to speech evaluations, dentists, dance class, book club, and doctors. I should schedule a mammogram, but hey. I figure a week to get most of it done, and a week to get ready for school. I can't wait for school to start -- I need the rest!

The Epiphany of August

I've suddenly reached a strange, tranquil state of zen based on something so simple that it's almost unremarkable. Here it comes. Ready?

There's no sense in getting upset over my kids' limitations and disabilities. They are what they are. There's not much I can do to change that, but it's my job to keep trying to help them learn to get on with their lives.

See? It's a small but significant step over the line back into sanity. Oh sure, I can weep at every speech evaluation, burst into tears when The Boy hits someone at play group, blame myself for everything that's gone wrong, and be mortified when my kids stand out as weirdos. But where does that get me?

On the other hand, if I can detach myself from the self-pity and regret, I have the power to help them become who they can become.

Starting school next week? NOOOOOO!!!

It's getting busy now, and if one more person asks me if I'm ready to start school, I'm going to either scream or burst into tears. Maybe both. So far, I've managed to say, "Well, we finished school at the end of June, so we're not going back until August 30. And no, I'm not EVEN ready!"

Sad, but true. Not ready.

It's been said that at 10 years old, kids reach a tipping point, educationally. They can read, write, add, multiply, and do some fractions. They know the basics of US government and geography. They know parts of speech and how to conjugate "swing". They have completed a few years of "survey of science" textbooks. They have a basic education. Now the fun starts -- it's time to let them choose what they want to learn!

Now, in The Girl's case, it's a little different. At this point in her education, she can write a little, spell common words, identify parts of speech, decode a large range of words. She can not conjugate verbs, draw conclusions from text, or write long essays. She can add, subtract, carry, and borrow. She can multiply single-digit numbers. She can round, identify fractions, count money, and tell time (almost). So, she's got another year before she hits the tipping point, probably more.

Still, it's time to start evaluating what she needs to learn. I'm not talking about spelling lists or US government. I'm talking much more fundamental. It's going to do her no good to learn all the "necessary" academic material if she can't go through the grocery store without hopping, darting, whinnying, and generally doing weird stuff. Or if she can't read and disseminate.

So today we drove an hour to the nearest "real" city to get a speech evaluation done by someone who works at the school for autism. While we were there, the speech therapist had us talk with the occupational therapist. She talked dirty to me -- said things about sensory diet, aspects of braingym, academic accommodation, vestibular input, etc. It's been a long time since I last heard an OT talk about much else than writing in shaving cream on a table. So, we've hopped on board for a two-hour round-trip drive once a week, with a promise to do our homework. OT and speech, here we come!

In the mean time, we're going to be hopping. Today was the speech eval, tomorrow is my portfolio review for last year and emptying closets, Wednesday is the mold remediation (take the cats to my mother's, drive the kids to the Science Center in the big city, dinner at my mom's), Thursday and Friday are days to put everything back that we had to move for the decontamination.

On the up side, I got to buy myself a new power tool yesterday to move the shelves around in the master bedroom closet! Ooh! Aah! It's a good thing!! ;)

Dragonfly Summer

So, what's new here...?

This week has been Vacation Bible School in the mornings. Yeah. By late night on Wednesday, I found myself trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to convince The Boy that the Church no longer tortures and kills unbelievers or heretics. He was becoming convinced that reading a book about the Roman empire at VBS would result in his being stoned to death. Or something. Yeah. We had been tinkering with cutting his dose of prozac, but now I'm re-thinking it. Yeah.

The Girl and I have been footloose for about an hour and a half every morning. We flitted about town -- to the Sam's Club, to the museum, to the Office Depot, to Jo-Ann Fabrics -- and I've been able to hang out with the kitchen ladies. It has been very instructional, re-teaching "walk with me", teaching her to ask, "May I go to x?" instead of just bolting, etc., talking politely to the church ladies, that sort of thing.

See, I spent the kids' first few years teaching them doggy commands: come, stay, sit, shake, give it -- and now I find myself teaching the last one. No, not "play dead". I'm teaching "heel", only we call it "walk with". My kids follow me like baby ducks, and it's much more irritating than you'd rationally think, especially as my ageing neck gets stiffer by the year. "Where are you mutts? Why are you behind me?!"

Ah, summer. In the deep south. Want to know why they call it "dragonfly summer"? Because the bugs are so bad that the dragonflies swarm all over the place all the time. It's a little creepy sometimes. But cool. But not in a temperature sort of way...

Hey, everyone needs a hobby...

What have we been doing lately? Well, the A/C guy came Tuesday and said that the evaporator is clogged and the supporting box (and its insulation) is saturated with water. He recommended that we have the evaporator replaced when we have the box replaced. Yeah, about $1000 worth of repairs.

Then the next day some crazy A/C company cold-called with an offer to do a free evaluation of the system. I said, "Sure, why don't you come over and give me an estimate to fix this mess." He came over, checked over the system, found we were low on freon, cleaned the condenser, and sold me a maintenance contract. Then he recommended his buddy who does mold remediation because my homeowner's insurance company would pay to fix the damage.

The remediation company came over on Thursday, put in four extremely loud dehumidifiers and two deafening high-speed fans, and said they'd be back to test the air on Saturday. After two nights of NO SLEEP, they came Saturday and said that the supporting box under the evaporator is still wet, so they left the dehumidifiers running until Monday morning when they'll try again.

In the mean time, I'm going deaf. And I'm getting cranky from yelling over the noise of the fans. I'm tired of having to sleep on my kid's top bunk because there's a dehumidifier roaring in my bedroom. I'm tired of it all!

On the plus side, I get to redecorate the second bathroom! Yeah, the caulk failed at the back of the vanity top, allowing the pressboard to get soaked and then mildewed. It's been on my to-do list for some time now. I found a new solid-wood vanity and an inexpensive vanity top. The thing now is that the old vanity was 34 inches wide, and a standard vanity is 31 inches wide, so the vinyl flooring will need to be fixed/replaced in order to avoid looking like white trash live here. While we're replacing the vinyl, we may as well replace the toilet which has a broken lid and doesn't flush right. So, now we're looking at linoleum and a low-flow toilet that will flush a beach towel. Grand total for materials? About $1000. Oy Vey. That's about the same amount that I was willing to pay the first A/C company to replace the evaporator and support box.

Hey, if the economy doesn't turn around soon, it won't be my fault!