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 |  Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? |
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Fair Warning: I've upped the rating on this blog. It is now set at GC. |
| Today was the last day of school for my children. My son is ecstatic, but my daughter is feeling a bit blue. She is a very social creature and although she doesn't like the homework, the rules, and the tests, she loves school because it means being around her friends. She knows that those friendships may change now. They tend to shift around each year as class assignments are shuffled and interests change. She is genuinely sad to see sixth grade come to an end. On the bright side, she was very pleased to come home with a stack of awards including perfect attendance... again. My daughter has not missed a day of school since the first grade. She is still mad at me for keeping her home that day when she "really wasn't all that sick."  Who is this child I'm raising? As for myself... today was a sick day. I felt awful most of the day, and I'm just now feeling up to nibbling on some crackers.  Since I don't have much to report on today, I thought I'd share a couple pictures with you. These are of my garden. I figure I talk about it enough, I ought to give you some perspective on it. Both pictures are taken from my very favorite spot in the garden. I love to sit out on the pea stone patio along the back of the house. It is bordered by a flower bed, and offers a lovely vantage point for keeping an eye on my son when he's on the trampoline. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** The line you can see cutting across the picture is the dogs run, but he was on the other end of the yard perched on the picnic table like the mighty lion sunning himself on a rock. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This picture is taken from the same spot, but at a different angle to show off the clematis, and roses. Now you can see also that I really do have flamingos in my garden. This one is vintage though and very faded. I'll have to take pictures of some of the others when I feel better.  |
| I was driving through town yesterday and saw a man on the corner holding a large sign that said "Bible Warning." On it was a list of sins and sinners that were fated to... uhhh... well, I couldn't read the fine print, but I imagine it didn't involve dancing with unicorns in a flower filled meadow. On one side were the sinners: Thieves, Murderers, Adulterers, Idolaters, Drunkards, Fornicators, and I believe there were some others thrown in there including of course, homosexuals. On the other side was a list of SAT Vocabulary words... all the abjectives of sin. I'd have read them all, but the light turned green around lasciviousness. The man with the sign would most likely condemn me for my night out last night, and probably rightly so, but I had a great time out with my friends all the same. Since I don't follow Nascar at all, I didn't realize this was a race weekend. We aren't far from Pocono Raceway, and race weekends are a big deal and bars do what they can to attract the race fans. The bar we chose is a microbrewery / bar and restaurant known locally as the Brew Pub. We went there for the large outdoor bar and deck. It was a beautiful, mild evening for it, and the deck was lively, but not too crowded. Tony and I met up with Bonnie and Mark a bit early, and Mark really is a very nice and good looking guy. Of course, take my opinion with a grain of salt. Judging from the people I've hired lately, I don't screen crazy well. The four of us were joined shortly by Chris and Denise (a lesbian couple), and my British friend Emma. They had gone out first to a strip club. Later another couple, Janet and Jerry arrived. The evening was a Birthday celebration for Chris and well... Denise felt that party games were in order. She had a bar scavenger hunt for us. I left my list at the bar, so I can't recall exactly the items we were looking for, but among those I remember were: 1. Find someone with a piercing that is not visible. Fortunately, our waitress helped us out with that one. We got bonus points because she showed it to us.  Our waitress was a very good sport.2. Find someone who knows the words to our National Anthem and would sing or attempt to sing at least part of it. We kind of had to stretch on this one because people didn't seem to know the words. We had to convince a couple folks that "God Bless America" didn't count. Sheesh!!! 3. Find three items that start with the the letter 'P' and write a limerick about those three items (preferably a dirty limerick). Fifteen bonus points to the best limerick. Well... guess who won the bonus points. 4. Ask people what brand of underwear they are wearing and keep asking until you find people wearing five different brands of underwear. Bonus points if you find someone who is NOT wearing underwear. Well... I was going to make a list of 5, but those are the only ones I specifically remember, and no, it wasn't because I drank too much. I drank with great moderation. After we'd wrapped up the search, there were prizes too be awarded. The third place team of Bonnie and Mark won a can of baked beans. Tony and I took second place and won a used Ace of Base Cassette tape "The Sign". Emma was the first place winner and I don't recall her prize, but we all decided she had an unfair advantage with her accent. Seems that in an American bar, and attractive woman with a British accent can pretty much get away with asking anyone, anything. We put this to the test with a bonus round challenge. I laid a dollar bill on the table and told Emma it was hers if she could find someone in the bar who had a condom, but she had to produce the condom as proof. Pretty soon everyone was laying out money and pot grew more attractive. Emma went to work. She boldly approached groups of bar patrons asking "Excuse me, would any of you blokes happen to have a condom." She even had the bartender make an announcement. Amazingly, no one seemed to have a condom, and there wasn't a vending machine in the men's room either. As Emma put it "We're in a condom desert." Our waitress wanted in on that action and we extended the challenge to her. Well, she won the pot by getting a condom off the cook (who wanted it back, by the way). When she brought it over I thought I would die laughing... It was banana flavored. As Mark sat there with a can of beans and a condom on the table in front of him Tony started to laugh. "That's a party in your pants anyway you look at it," he explained. Ah yes, nothing like a sophisticated evening out on the town with friends. We really had a great time, and I laughed a lot. We didn't scare Mark off and Bonnie finally got a kiss when he took her home. |
| The end is near! I say that half jokingly... but only half. In the paper today, the headlines announced that contracts have been signed to build a multi-million dollar, 600 mile long, fiber optic network between my town and New York City. The signing of the contract, and building of this network, are the final hurdles to the proposed "Wall Street West" project. Ever since 9/11, Manhattan's financial district has been seeking the means to insulate themselves against terrorism. This included creating back up locations within a relatively close proximity of the City, and yet on a separate power grid, water supply and so forth. My town, sitting just this side of Jersey, along a major interstate link to the City became a focal point along with the Scranton area and the Lehigh Valley. Now those plans are going to become a reality. We are the terminus for the main network. An off shoot of the network will also be built to the Lehigh Valley. New York is coming to us.  Oh well... if nothing else, maybe it'll be enough to inflate all the local property values enough that it'll be very attractive to sell and move. That is, after all, the ultimate goal. Hope you all are enjoying the weekend. Tonight my mother is babysitting the kids and my husband and I are going out with Bonnie and her boyfriend, and another couple. I'm really looking forward to it since I don't get out much. |
| There is a revolution underway in parts of Europe. A great social experiment is taking place and I hope they are collecting data because I, for one, will be very interested in the results. The experiment, a project called “Shared Space” is the brain child of Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer, and smacks of anarchy and chaos and lots of other great stuff! The social / behavioral component of the project is simple. The more external safety measures we have in place, the more likely people are to engage in careless or risky behavior. If people feel that they are in a less safe environment they act more cautiously. This is a sound and proven psychological principal known as the risk compensation effect. Monderman has adopted the motto “Unsafe is safe,” and European towns participating in the project are taking down their road signs and traffic lights to increase the safety on the roads. Guess what… it’s working! Average speeds have dropped. Fatal accidents have dropped. Life is good. By taking down all the artificial controls right down to the lines on the road, they’ve eliminated the rules and traffic is now regulated by the whims of human behavior and social interaction. As Monderman has said “We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior.” He also points out “When you don’t exactly know who has the right of way, you tend to seek eye contact with other road users… You automatically reduce your speed, you have contact with people and you take greater care.” Proponents of the project note that drivers have shorter trip times, fewer accidents, and more human interaction in the form of eye contact and hand gestures. Check out one of the many on-line articles about the project… http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448747,00.html All of this got me thinking about the traffic and driving habits of people in my area. As I’ve pointed out, my area is the Northeastern corner of Pennsylvania. I’m within spitting distance (If you can spit a couple miles) of the Delaware Water Gap area where the Delaware cuts through the mountains separating us from New Jersey. Unfortunately someone built a bridge and those Jersey folks keep moving to this side of it. New York and New Jersey drivers are rather famous for their lack of courtesy (a euphemism if ever there was one) on the roadways. What would happen if they started to strip away the street signs and allow human behavior to rein on the roads. Hmmm… I’m, not sure there is an emoticon that adequately captures my sense of horror. Have you been to Wal Mart? Have you seen how these people are while pushing their shopping carts through the store? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, motorists around here already actively engage in using eye contact and hand gestures. I’m sure they mostly ignore the road signs anyway. Sometimes they even ignore the roads. Just the other day I was stopped, waiting to make a left hand turn onto a busy road. A motorist several cars back did not want to wait as he was making a right. He solved the problem by cutting across a driveway and a lawn.  Anyone out there think the “less is more” approach could work in the U.S.? |
| The good thing about crises are that eventually the are followed by an uneventful day. Let me tell you, that day feels amazing. It's all about lowering the bar. Let's see, I finally got around to wrapping up my blog writing challenge. Because the criteria were pretty non existent, and the entries were so varied, I decided on winners in two categories and then a special recognition award. So the winners were: Fiction: Nada  Poetry: Kåre Enga in Montana  and a special recognition award goes to Anyea for using ALL of the prompts in a wonderfully funny story starring many of the folks who visit my blog.Congrats to the winners and special thanks to everyone who participated! Hmmm... what else can I say about today. I was very proud of myself because I found a fix for a spreadsheet problem we were having at work. We are still trying to put together our budget request for the new fiscal year, and the numbers just weren't adding up right. I figured out that there was a problem, diagnosed the problem and, shockingly enough, was able to fix the problem with a series of processes that vaguely resembled MATH. My boss was pretty impressed, but like my husband is fond of saying, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile. I hope all of you have a fantastic evening, and I want you all to know how much I've appreciated your supportive comments over the past couple weeks. Gotta go... the garden is calling me. |
| I realize last nights entry was a real downer and so I'm making it a point to sit down and get in todays entry before the midnight hour when my mind naturally tends to swing toward maudlin. Fortunately, in all my wallowing I seem to have found the bottom and bounced back up a bit. I might still be pretty low, but I've got some upward momentum. Amazing what a little commiserating will do. I have a note pad by my phone with a list of folks we serve who are in active crisis and I'm up to seven names... not including my own. Finally, today, I was able to sit down with the boss-man and run through the list. We didn't fix anything, but just reviewing the cases and, to some extent, sharing the burden, helps. Go figure. My Boss is convinced all the upheaval is linked to the blue moon this month. (Full moon on the 1st and the 30th). I'm not sure I buy into that, but I guess it is as good a theory as any. Today dealt another blow. We have a client who has been experiencing the on set of schizophrenia. He has been hearing voices, suffering paranoid delusions, having command hallucinations, the whole works. He is 16. I met with his father and the "treatment team" around the middle of April to try to intervene. Today the father, for reasons we will never know, shot and killed himself leaving behind his 16 year old son and 14 year old daughter. He was the custodial parent for both children. When I got home from work I shed a few stressed out tears. Not only is the week spiraling downward, it is becoming a spectacular fireball in the process. In spite of it, I'm feeling better. So bring it on world! Whatcha got? Let's see what happens if we throw some bottle rockets into the fireball. How about an aerosol can? I came home from work and escaped outside. What a beautiful evening. I jumped on the trampoline with my kids. I talked with my daughter who always cracks me up. She was telling me about a friend of hers that has a job. He was complaining to her that he was having a slow day and had nothing to do. Her response was "you're lucky to get paid for doing nothing. Man! If I got paid for doing nothing... I'd be RICH!" I've got about a half hour of light left folks, so I'm headed back outside. Y'all have a great night! |
| Here's the scenario... A woman is found badly beaten in a hotel room. She has a three year old with her. She is taken to the emergency room. She knows her name, and the town she lives in, but not her address, phone number or date of birth. She can not name an emergency contact person or relative. She reports that her boyfriend beat her up and left her and her daughter at the hotel. The emergency room contacts the local emergency shelter and they pick the woman up. She has no ID, no shoes, and the three year old is dressed only in a t-shirt and diaper. The woman is unable to name any relative or friend that the shelter might contact. She can only come up with first names. Shortly after lunch a call comes in to our agency from the shelter. They report that they have a woman who appears to have a developmental disability, and that she is unable to care for herself or her child. Because she is not able to care for herself and the child, she can not stay. They can not help her. The Crisis worker taking the call hears that she is developmental disabled and tries to shift the call over to my department. The woman is not in our services and we know nothing about her except her name, the town where she lives (which happens to be in a neighboring county), and the year she was born. I called my contacts in the neighboring county and they tell me they do not have anyone registered for services by that name, but that they will ask around. About five minutes later, I get a call back from someone who tells me that they do have a record of the woman and that she had been enrolled in there Mental Health services. I still don't know much, but I now have the last known address, a date of birth, and a social security number. Still no contact information. I share the information with the crisis team and the folks at Child Protective Services are thrilled because they don't have to be responsible for the child if another county is involved. All of a sudden, knowing that she had previously received mental health services, the crisis was re framed. Maybe she is confused because she was beaten and traumatized. Maybe she is unable to care for herself because she is psychotic or even catatonic. Maybe... maybe... maybe... Is anyone still with me? My mind cannot seem to let this one go, so hear are my thoughts. 1. We close our minds. Not having information upon which to draw a conclusion does NOT make a person more open minded about the possibilities. Human nature is to tightly wrap your thinking around the first plausible theory that presents itself. If this woman was confused because she was injured, or incoherent because of psychosis or trauma, shouldn't the ER doctors have picked up on that. I couldn't even get an answer as to whether she had been treated or medically cleared by the ER. Perhaps they did not treat her because they couldn't determine who she was, let alone whether she was insured. Instead, they pushed her and her child off on the Women's shelter. 2. We close our hearts. We throw people away every single day. In the world of human services you have to learn which problems can be addressed by which service system and anyone who has spent time working in this line of work can make a rapid five second assessment of the issue at hand. It is either "my problem," or "NOT my problem." On a good day most of the issue will fall into the later category. "I'm sorry, that is a housing issue." "That's really more of an education issue." "I'd like to help, but that's a medical assistance issue." "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" And I will refer them to a shelter, a food bank, and vocational training. We do the minimal amount necessary. We listen with closed minds and closed hearts. We listen, not to the stories, worries and fears, but to the key words that might relieve us of responsibility. 3. We close our eyes. Because we don't want to see how many others are out there that are sifting down through the cracks or teetering just on the edge. We don't want to see how thin the line is between making it and not making it in this world. "There but for the grace of God..." It is official folks. I need to find myself a new line of work. I wonder if Cluck U Chicken is still hiring. |
| Well, I hate to say it, but blogging and keeping up with your blogs seems to be falling by the wayside. Things are a bit hectic at the moment with the school year coming to an end and with the garden demanding much of my "free time." I spend much of the weekend trying to move plants out of harms way as the excavation for the storm drain project was slated to start today. I moved the most valuable plants, but really couldn't get to everything. I tried to move top soil too. It seems a shame to have it get buried in the excavation process. Yesterday I went out to move a couple shrubs and just about killed myself. I planted these things when they were tiny and the roots grew down into the gravel and rocks. It made digging it out almost impossible, but I kept at until I snapped the handle off my spade. Damn!!!! I threw down the handle and stomped on inside to announce that I was going to Sears. After catching sight of myself in the mirror, I decided that would necessitate a shower and change of clothes. Did I mention it was raining? Yep, we finally had that slow, steady rain I've been waiting for. I was soaked to the bone and streaked... okay, caked with mud. No wonder the neighbor man jokes about the "wet t-shirt contests" next door. Anyway, after a nice shower I ran to Sears and bypassing all the wooden handled shovels, I found myself a fine one indeed!!! It is a Craftsmen spade with a fiberglass handle and it has a 100% guarantee to last "forever." I brought my shovel home. I might have liked to shop some more, but I felt conspicuous walking through the mall carrying my new shovel. Apparently you don't get a bag when you buy one of those things, and so a trip through Victoria's Secret seemed like not such a good idea. I brought the shovel home, changed back into work clothes and headed back out to the rain. Still, I couldn't move that bush for the life of me, and I had three of them to dig out. In desperation, I finally asked for hubby's help. It didn't take him long to decide a shovel wasn't gonna cut it. He brought out the six foot long, 40 lb pry bar and levered the poor things out of the ground. So happened that I have a brand new, un-planted garden that I started building last fall. It is giving me the perfect place to temporarily house my poor displaced plants, and it gives the illusion that I actually have a plan and know what I'm doing with the garden stuff. Anyway, because of the rain the crew never came to start the work today. Those wimps! A little rain didn't stop me! I've got some seriously aching muscles today. I probably should have taken advantage of the work delay to move some more dirt / mud, but I don't have the stamina. Instead, I walked around with my camera taking pictures of my rain washed beauties. I uploaded the pictures I took of my roses into my garden journal and you can check them out at "Invalid Item"  . ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** These are my little dutch iris. I thought that they were all destroyed by the hail and then on Saturday this little batch bloomed. Hope you all had a great day, and I'll try not to neglect you all too much longer! For now though, both boy and dog are demanding my attention. |
| The rain finally came. It came in violent bursts with wind, and thunder and lightening. It fell in sheets and we had hail! My son looked out the window at one point and shouted "Mommy look! It's raining ice cubes!" Ice cubes is just what they looked like as the bounced across the deck. I had an empty 2 quart pitcher on the deck that I'd been using as an improvised watering can. By the time the rain stopped, less than two hours later, the pitcher was 3/4 full. The hail and wind DESTROYED my Iris, but thankfully the peonies aren't open yet. Some of the roses were, and they suffered, but there will be more. The rain cleared the air. It settled the pollen and somehow drove off my funk. It is a good thing too because today was just bad news. One of my case managers resigned. No surprise. She is an excellent worker and I've wondered why the heck she wasn't moving on. Now she is, and I will really be feeling the loss. Also today, we heard back from the Texas folks and Tony is NOT eligible for the current position. They can not hire him without his license. Again, no big surprise since this was the original message. Still, it is not a total wash. I made us stop and think about what we really want to be doing and where we want to be doing it. Tony is highly motivated now to study, study and study some more for licensing and take the test as soon as reasonable. Once he passes, I'm sure he'll be talking to the Ft. Hood folks again. On a light note, Bonnie came into my office and announced that she will never be able to marry the guy she is dating. Why? Well, she just found out his last name and if they were to marry, and she was to take his name, she'd be... Bonnie Beaver!!!! |
| I came home from work today and found white lines spray painted along my side yard, across my driveway, and through my garden. It turns out that the folks at the water authority are FINALLY going to remedy the drainage problems on our street. The project has been in the plans for the last... hmmm... 5 years? In assessing the problem today they determined that the storm drains are completely blocked and must be dug up and replaced. That the digging will include part of my side yard, and a chunk of one of my garden is concerning, but workable. The driveway issue will be a mess, but they will repair what they tear up. My bigger fear is that they will disturb critters that may be living in the drain and those critters might start skittering around looking for new digs. I shudder to think! Anything else exciting happening? Well, my dog ran away today. I was out with my son on the trampoline trying to sweep the mat surface as the boy child jumped around me. I heard someone say my dogs name and when I looked I saw he wasn't on his line. Apparently the clip didn't catch all the way on the line and Carter took off. I spotted him three houses over frantically marking bushes and trees. I hollered over to the neighbor that Carter was lose. Calling him was futile. I know this. One time he got away and ran up the hillside behind us. I could see his white tail wagging up on the ridge, but I had no way of getting to him. It is a steep hill. Anyway, eventually he came back down and I saw him crawl under the neighbors garage door. He used to keep it partially open for his cats. I felt terrible that Carter was in the neighbors garage, but the neighbor wasn't home and I couldn't call him out. I layed on the driveway peering into the darkness of the garage when I heard the panting very near my head. It was my dog! Apparently the neighbor had a door open at the back of his garage. I made a quick grab for the dog, but he backed away looking at me all smiley with his tail wagging. I popped up and lunged for him and he dropped to his belly and wiggled under the door. He was on about his fourth or fifth circuit of "through the garage, around the house, and under the door" when the neighbor arrived. I profusely apologized as I explained that I believed Carter was in his garage. The neighbor slapped his thigh once and yelled "Come here pup," and I watched in amazement as MY dog came tearing around the house and skidded to a halt at the neighbors feet before dropping his butt in a well mannered sit. Dumbfounded, I handed him the leash. He snapped the leash on my Carter, patted his head, and handed the leash to me. I took the leash and Carter dragged me across the street to our house. Whenever Carter runs away I have to seriously question the wisdom of recapturing him. You know what they say... If you love something, set it free... if it comes back to you... you need to drive another mile up the road before pushing it out of the car. Before y'all decide I'm a horrible, rotten person, let me say that I was very worried that my poor doggie might wander into the road. I didn't especially want a big horse of a dog, but I do kinda love the beast, and was glad to have him back safe and sound. Here is a picture of my Heinz 57 dog, Carter. He is gazing out the window and plotting his next escape. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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