House of Zathras

It’s also the middle of Mardi Gras, the partyingest party known to mankind, and you want to show support for the Saints. How do you do it?

By having an RC Cola and a Moon Pie of course! Geaux Saints!!!

And since I do live in Alabama, here is a story from Lewis Grizzard:

One day a man walks into a place and orders an RC Cola and a Moon Pie. The guy behind the counter says, “You must be from Alabama.”

The customer replied angrily, “Just because I ordered an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, how come you think I must be from Alabama? If I ordered spaghetti, would you think I was from Italy? If I ordered sausage, would you say I was from Poland?”

The man at the counter says, “Well, I can’t say. It’s never happened.”

So the customer asks, “Then how come when I come in here and order an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, you just automatically assume I’m from Alabama?”

And the man calmly replies, “‘Cause this is a hardware store.”

It can suck. There’s nobody who can run the Netflix DVD out to the mailbox when you don’t want to get dressed to go out there.

And nobody to get up at 6:00 AM to let the animals out and feed them.

*sigh*

How do you say TGIF?

Now, how do you say it without kids for the whole weekend? 

And so…what are y’all’s plans for the Super Bowl? I usually make fried mushrooms with ranch dip. And wait for the commercials.

Oh, wait. Now we have DVR…I can make the commercials wait for me!!! Bwah-haa-haa-haaa! I have the power!

My new Haitian student? Gone. Without my being able to say goodbye.

Seems the ‘evaluator’ for the ‘ESOL’ (English for Speakers of Other Languages) deemed my student’s older brother ‘not proficient’ in English. So now they’re going to be bussed out of their home neighborhood to a school that ’specializes’ in the remediation of the English language. Among mainly children who speak Spanish and Vietnamese. Yeah, that will be really good for building their English. These kids aren’t speaking French/Haitian/Creole. Accented English yes, with different cultural implications. But supposedly their English will improve by being among non-English speakers!!!!

And get this…when this evaluator came to the school to screen my student, I was asking her about some situations I’d experienced with my student (see my previous post). The woman said she had no idea. I said something to the effect of the belief systems being a combination of traditional African beliefs and Catholicism. She looked at me and said, “Well, you know more about it than I do.” And SHE made the decision that the boys would be better off at the other school to build their language skills.

Maybe it will. But these boys already spoke English AS THEIR NATIVE LANGUAGE!!!!. My student was really opening up and interacting and laughing with the other students. He was asking and answering questions in class.

I am just heart-broken about this student leaving. I don’t think it was right what they did…I’m sure the cultural differences affected the outcome of the test…I’ve experienced that in California and in Texas.

And they called him into the office while we were at recess with no damn explanation. I call to check on him, and was told he’s gone. Just like that.

It ain’t right. And you know what else???? It’s FTE week. It’s the week we do a ’special count’ to see how much funding schools get from the government. The more kids in ’special services’, the more funding the district gets. I’m sure putting two kids into this ’special’ program will get the district some extra money.

It’s a bunch of crap.

It’s been an experience getting to know my new student from Haiti. Anybody know much about Haitian culture? I require my students to be polite and use good manners. However, this little boy doesn’t say ‘ma’am’. With his accent, it sounds like he’s saying some kind of ‘yeah’…but it might be the normal polite reply. I’m not requiring him to say ‘ma’am’ because I worry that it would be subservient in the Haitian culture (due to the history of slavery there). He is polite in all other aspects, like saying ‘thank you’ when he gets something.

When the class came in from PE today, another boy had been apparently talking to ‘Henri’ about Haiti. My American student told me that Henri’s mother had died, but not in the earthquake. I asked Henri if he wanted to talk about his mother (since he had already said something to this boy), and he said his father told him not to. I did ask why, and he said because then his mother would come into his dreams.

Wow…talk about cultural differences. It also shed a whole new light onto a news clip I saw last week about a young Haitian mother who had lost three children. The stupid news reporter asked her if she had buried her children. She replied, ‘No…I just tossed them aside. I go on living’. At first I thought it was the shock making her so callous. But now I believe it’s something to do with their belief systems about death.

This is so different from the American view of ‘talking it out’. I worry that this boy is feeling lost and scared but won’t say anything because of his upbringing. I’m not trying to change his upbringing…I just don’t want him to feel alone.

But if anyone knows anything or a resource I can use to understand the culture, please let me know. Thank you.

It has been a long crappy day at work. It is report card week, with all the data collation that implies. I was also supposed to be getting ready for an important meeting tomorrow concerning a student’s academic progress. There was paperwork involved with that process, too. I was hoping to finish that work after school, only to find out I had yet another meeting pop up out of nowhere. So it meant that I had one event to attend immediately after school, then go pick up Princess No when her school let out, then go back to my school to finish up paperwork.

I had a headache that wouldn’t stop, and I was hungry. Hoping to finish up and get out, I made one last call to the counselor to clear up some information for tomorrow’s meeting. That’s when she told me “Oh, you’re back at school? You’re probably going to be mad at me.” Of course I asked ‘why’, and she told me that she had asked for a new student to be placed in my classroom. Of course I asked ‘why’ again. She replied, “Because this new student will need a certain type of teacher, and I narrowed it down to you and another one. But the other teacher lost her husband last year, and this kid’s situation might touch too close for her.”

The kid’s situation? He’s from Haiti. Yeah.

So I rushed to the front office to see about getting some supplies. I hate getting a new kid unannounced, because I want to have at least a desk nameplate ready. It’s hard enough for a kid to go to a new school…I try to be as ‘ready’ for them as possible, so they feel they had a place ready for them…not standing alone watching the teacher having to hustle to get a desk, books, etc.

When I got to the office this kid was still there with his godfather. So I got to meet him, and show him our classroom and the school. He’s quiet, bless his heart. But his accent is sweet!

If I had left school ‘on time’, I wouldn’t have known about this new student until I walked into work tomorrow…20 minutes before kids start arriving. My ‘late’ day at school was actually a gift that placed me in the right place to hopefully give this kid a nicer start to his first day of school.

But I’m scared. This kid has witnessed something I can’t really comprehend. What do I do FOR him to help make it easier for him? The kid has not only seen his home destroyed, he’s had to leave his country. I can’t comprehend that series of upheavals and losses. I’m not really sure if his parents are alive or not.

God bless the dear little boy.

NOT!!!!

You need a teleprompter to talk to a bunch of kids? TWO teleprompters? What kind of lazy-ass wuss needs all that prompting to talk to a bunch of kids?

Give me Bush and whatever the hell goat story it was any day. He got right down with the kids, and didn’t freak out and scare them on 9-11. Our current president is keeping his distance from the kids. Oh wait…he got out and shook hands with some of those kids…after they had removed the desks from the room to put up the equipment for the teleprompter…leaving the teacher to get everything back in order after his royal asinine-ness left.

I just don’t have a favorable impression of a man who has so little understanding of children. If you need a teleprompter to talk on a kid’s level…dude, you ain’t much of a man. And if you weren’t talking on a kid’s level while in a school, then again, you ain’t much of a man.

They’re going to the Super Bowl, baby!!!

I just heard about this…do a google search for the newest Senator…truckin’ man Scott Brown. But after his name, add the word ‘Cosmopolitan’. Just be careful…NSFW.

My husband is always saying that the Conservative side of politics has better-lookin’ women. But damn, we’ve got some nice-lookin’ men, too.

Princess No is the ONLY loser who has to wait after school on a Friday for her MOM to pick her up! Everyone else has a place to go and cool things to do and Mom just doesn’t understand! HRH has to wait until Mom gets off work which means she has to wait almost a half-hour when everyone else zips away to a weekend of fun and friendship! Oh, the world is ending and Mom doesn’t understand!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Apparently Obama thinks that ‘everybody can buy a truck’, trying to snub Scott Brown as he drives around Massachusetts (see, Coakley, I can use spell check even if your staffers can’t) in a pickup truck with around 200,000 miles on it.

Well, Comrades Obama and Coakley, I have something to tell you about ‘everybody’:

Everybody LOVES a pickup man!

(Click to enlarge so you can read the fine print.)

While running errands today I came across a panhandler. I only had a few bucks on me, but sighed and passed two bucks out to the guy while waiting at the light. Some time later I was sitting in a parking lot listening to my b-i-l on the phone. You don’t have to talk much when he’s on a roll. So instead of just sitting there while he chattered on, I grabbed an empty shopping bag and began cleaning up my car. After a few moments, I leaned over to see if there was any trash between the passenger seat and the console. And there, wedged by the base, was a crumpled $20 bill.

Yay me!

H/T to BR…who got it, curiously enough, from one of his liberal friends on FB:

Courtesy of Minneapolis Star Tribune’s ‘Letter of the Day‘:

Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

You can fuck off too, Danny Glover, along with Pat Robertson. You sit with your millions in a 6000 square foot home (last I heard, anyway) which I’m sure must have one heck of a carbon footprint, and you DARE to say Haiti’s disaster is because of man-made global impact and a lack of success in Copenhagen?

I don’t care if you worship Gaia or God…the earth can shrug off mankind like a bad case of dandruff without any help from mankind. And as soon as these folks get off their ego trip of thinking puny man can destroy a whole effin planet, maybe they can make a REAL contribution to HELPING people, instead of just being insufferable bastards. Go blow it out your ass and sniff it. THAT’s the only real impact assholes like Glover and Robertson have on the earth.

Yes, there have been changes at the non-virtual HoZ. Changes in habits.

For example, last Friday I sat everyone down for a family meeting. I laid down a few rules about house cleaning. On Mondays, everyone would clean their bedrooms. On Tuesdays, dust and vacuum those rooms. Wednesdays would be for cleaning another assigned room, and Thursdays are for dusting and vacuuming those rooms. Fridays are for cleaning bathrooms. (Chores are already in place daily for cleaning the kitchen.) When you get home from work/school you may have a snack, but no tv or computer time until the cleaning is finished. If we can be regular at this, it would leave the weekends freer and less stressful.

Well, Buck was pouty. I pointed out that he had that whole weekend to adjust, and then the new plan would start on Monday. Yes, he had an extremely messy room, but he could at least get started on laundry and not have so much to face on Monday.

He did nothing. Monday came (bedroom-cleaning day). Since Buck leaves for school after us and gets home before us, I took the precaution of disconnecting the internet and locking the remote to the satellite service in my room. (He could change channels manually, of course, but he won’t stoop to that!) I came home, and he lay sleeping on his bed. I woke him up and reminded him of his responsibilities (nearly breaking my neck crossing the crap in his room to get to his bed!), but didn’t say anything further. No computer/tv for Buck that night.

Tuesday came (bedroom dusting and vacuuming day). When I got home, Buck had still done nothing, and was once again laying on his bed. Princess No and I got busy and finished with our chores. Then I left to have dinner with BR (thank you for the wonderful steaks, darling!), and Princess No got on the computer. As I left, Buck asked when I would be home. I told him I wasn’t sure, but I would be home by 10:00 (on school nights he does have to get off tv/computer by 9:00 anyway). I barely got to BR’s before Buck was calling, begging, pleading to please, please let him get on the computer (Facebook and withering crops in Farmville were calling him apparently) and he would promise to get all his work done.

I simply said, “No”, each time he asked. He finally gave up.

Wednesday came (cleaning the ‘extra’ assigned room; in Buck’s case, the living room where he’s pretty much the only one to watch tv). Princess No and I got home a little later than usual. But when we got home, Buck had cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed the living room, doing Thursday’s work one day early.

Can I have a “Hallelujah!!!”?

Which is the worst battle:

Getting into a sport bra? Or getting out of it?

Fuck you, Pat Robertson. I don’t know who your God is, but mine doesn’t harbor supposed revenge over time to punish innocents.

Mine would be telling me, ‘Do what you can to help my children who are suffering.’

As my spiritual leader said, “I appeal to everyone’s generosity, so that these brothers and sisters of ours who are living through a time of need and pain receive our concrete solidarity and the effective help of the international community,”

And Mr. Pat…I don’t think you’ll be getting any pearls in your crown over this.

Have you EVER thought that maybe, JUST maybe, your selfish behavior against your ex is affecting your child? That your desire to prove you are the better parent is FORCING your child to chose between two people he loves?

And your desire to show that you are the better and more fun parent by keeping the child home from school if he even sniffs twice is keeping him from learning? Or that your child in all likelihood DOES have a learning disability that can’t be tested because of his excessive absences? The school is technically unable to rule out the absences as a source of the problem…so therefore your child could be falling behind not only because of the absences, but because of an undiagnosed learning disorder. But you have effectively tied our hands in helping your child.

And to the other parent who uses each and every opportunity to tell the child that the first parent is screwing him up…does that make the child hate the other parent? No, you’re making the child hate himself because he will now think he’s screwed up.

Way to go parents. Because you hate and despise each other, you are screwing up a beautiful child who has such potential and creative ability. If you both continue like this, the child won’t be labeled with a learning disability. Nope. He’ll get labeled as ‘EH’. What is ‘EH’? Emotionally Handicapped. Isn’t that a great label for a child?

You’re both pretending you’re trying to do what’s best for your child. All you’re doing is taking cheap shots at each other…but your child is on the receiving end of ALL those poisoned arrows, straight to his heart.

You have pissed me off, parents. Stop using your child to hurt the other parent. I’m only allowed by regulations to do and say certain things. But I wish you could see yourselves through his eyes. You would see a scared little child who only wants to love both his parents without worrying that love for one hurts the other.

Stupid parents. I’m sure you’ll still be pointing fingers at each other if your child grows up to be a dysfunctional adult. But if I run into you then, it will be my opportunity to tell you it’s a shame that his potential was lost because of the both of you. I hope to God that somehow, someway, I won’t have to say that.

I often have the tv on while I’m on computer. My computer is on the opposite wall, thus my back is towards the tv. Usually it’s not too bad…I have a pretty good imagination, so I can visualization what I need to as I listen.

Until today. Heard a new commercial for what I thought was ‘Ass Effects’. WTH???? Is it for colon cleansing? Constipation medication? Liposuction? Exercise machines? And how the heck can they say ‘ass’ on before prime-time television?

So I had to turn around…it’s ‘aciphex’. For acid reflux.   I really wonder about the way they name medicines. Have you ever heard of ‘Premarin’? It’s hormone therapy for menopausal women. It’s made from pregnant mare’s urine.  No thanks, I’ll take my hormone replacement therapy from Jack. Daniels, that is. And I’ll let my ass take care of itself.

Every time I see the movie ‘Rudy‘, I wind up crying at the end.

Maybe it’s just the empathy for another short person. Or maybe it was tears of excitement today because Princess No said she would consider going to Notre Dame. I just can’t keep bugging her about it, she said.

Shhh!

Static electricity.

Static electricity is something we rarely have to worry about down here. But these continuous low temps and driving winds have sapped most of our normal high humidity. The kids at school are, for the first time in their memories, experiencing shocks after they get out of their plastic chairs and touch the metal sides of their desks. (It’s kind of funny to watch, actually! Yeah, I get my thrills where I can.) But, we turned to our science books and looked up information about static electricity. Usually, you can’t even do the experiment with rubbing a balloon against your hair and sticking it to the wall…it’s too humid.

I washed some sheets today, and as I made the bed I heard the crackle of static electricity. And I used fabric softener! My fleece blanket is in the wash right now, and it definitely will get a dryer sheet.

Princess No managed to get a shock when she turned off her light last night, and managed to see a blue spark in her darkened room.

I don’t care about all this scientific study, however. I want my normal winter of highs in the high 50s and low 60s, and lows in the 40s.

I’m a winter wimp, and I admit it.

Although one day I would like to take a horse-drawn sleigh ride. And make a snowman. A life-sized snowman, not a foot-and a-half sized snowman we are occasionally able to make. And it takes every bit of snow that falls in the yard to make one even that size.

And I would really, really, like to be able to do something like this.

Because tonight I heard a promo for an ‘ABC Family’ show…and the premise involved a girl who was upset because her new coach was a man with whom her mother had had an affair.

How the hell is that a ‘family show’????? Screwing around and abusing your wedding vows is subject matter for family entertainment?

Gahhh. Our culture is going to hell in a handbasket.

How can this be? It was colder here today than in Antarctica!!! Yes, yes, I know that it’s summer in that hemisphere, but it’s Antarctica! It was 35 degrees there, and 32 here! WTF?

Did I mention I hate cold weather?

Had a blow up with Buck last night. Details are not that important…just him waiting until 10:00 at night to make requests for things that should have been taken care of much earlier in the evening, if not a day or two ago. Anyway, the teen angst kept brewing, I was tired and impatient, and Buck and I had a nasty argument. Wound up calling BR who offered to come home to stay there, and I went to ‘The Retreat’ that was BR’s mother’s home.

I can understand why he likes it here. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It stays clean. Nobody making demands on me the moment I get up. Demands that are deemed ‘emergencies’ because of a lack of proper planning on other people’s part. Demands that ask for ME to give up something I was doing so that the other person can go back to what they were doing…mainly watching tv or playing on the computer.

Fuck that.

It’s time to implement a new world order. Expectations will be laid out with visual, written, BIG reminders so that there is no misunderstanding about responsibilities.

Because while it is nice here at the House of Solitude, it is also very lonely. And empty. Not what I want for a lifetime. Superman had his Fortress of Solitude, but it was too cold and lonely even for him. If Superman can’t handle it, I certainly can’t. I don’t want to find my Super-Suit.

Well, tonight was a first EVER for me.

We went to a Japanese restaurant for Eraserhead’s last night here. I had some leftovers, so I brought it home to take to lunch tomorrow.

It’s so cold here that I’m leaving the food in the car. Leaving it the car overnight in hurricane country. Humid, hot, mosquito country.

It just ain’t right. Normally if you leave any food in the car here overnight, you risk ptomaine poisoning the next day.

But tomorrow, I’ll be lucky if my food is thawed by lunchtime.

I’m back at work now, and can’t jump on the internet any ol’ time I please. Which means fewer posts…less blog reading…not keeping up with my farm on Farmville.

Yes…I’m addicted to Farmville, so help me God.

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Today was the students’ first day back. Some of them aren’t quite ready. I told them at one point to get out their notebooks and open to a blank page. One girl called out ‘Why?’. But before I could say anything, a boy yelled back, “Because she said so!”

Heh. That kid got an extra stamp on his reward card.

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19 degrees tonight. 19!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m going to hate to see my electric bill and my water bill. We have to leave faucets dripping, because most homes down here just don’t have the covers/insulation/whatever that y’all more northerly denizens have.

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My son goes back to college tomorrow. I haven’t seen him since June, and it’s been so great having him here for a visit. Why is it that you can’t wait for kids to leave, and then you miss them so much when they’re gone?

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And finally, just because it made me LOL:

Forecast for my area this week:

Dammit: Updates (as of 6:30 PM,  Sunday) in pink, with new averages below.

Today: Hi 47    Low 23 20 Wind Chill: 10 – 20
Monday: Hi 46 43 Low 21 16 Wind Chill: 10 – 15
Tuesday: Hi 46 Low 22 14
Wednesday: Hi 49 Low 28
Thursday: Hi 51 Low 33
Friday: Hi 43 Low 23

Average for the week: 36 34 Our normal average for January is 39.9 (don’t ask me where they got the .9) And this wind chill crap…WTH is that all about? If I wanted this, I’d move farther north. But I’m about as far into the deep South as you can get. (Yes, you can technically get farther south in Florida…but South Florida is not the Deep South. It’s more like part of New Jersey.) We’re not prepared for this…we have to leave our faucets dripping so the pipes don’t freeze. The damn animals have to come inside. (Although it is cute the way the cat walks right into the crate with the dachshund…I have never seen a cat go willingly into a cage. But then again, it torments the poor dog, so I guess she considers it a fair trade to get out of the cold.)

I want some global warming action. I HATE wearing shoes and socks. My fat little toes need to breathe…not freeze if I decide to walk out to the car to get a book or something I left in there. And I can’t leave my cell phone charging in the car. And having to go out early before we leave for Church to warm up the car?

And how can I go shopping at the outlet mall after Church in this kind of weather? It’s not an indoor mall…so I will freeze my ass off going from store to store.

It just ain’t right.