Where was I...?

This is a post that I began after the bathroom blog. To update, each of us are taking turns cleaning the bathroom once a week. I think it is helping!


I am seriously thinking about hiring a maid to come in once a week. I will give the kids a chance to volunteer to clean the bathroom, after that, they will each pay for the maid to come in once a week to clean it.

(I will get over it, someday)

Anyway, that was my shower revelation today. That got me started thinking about the various jobs that I have had since I was 10 or so.

When I was 10, Renee and I got a job cleaning the condo of the bachelor next door. What was his name? He had a very clean house, but needed the glass tables and mirrors cleaned. Thank goodness we didn't have to clean his sheets. He was quite the busy bachelor and we could hear them in the summer when the windows were open.

After that I babysat for a little girl on weekend evenings. I don't remember too much about them except that they really liked me and trusted me and they had HBO. So, you have a preteen watching, "Here's Burlesque" and I still remember the "Jeepers, Creepers" bit. That was weird...

When we moved to Evansville, I got a babysitting job for two boys and two boxers. They were all challenging. I think I did a lot of journaling back then out of pure boredom. I was subject to torture of the worst kind - a television permanently tuned into "rasslin' ". I should explain that Evansville had a low form of southern dialect. Set across the Ohio river from Kentucky, they had all the backwoods dialect with none of the southern charm. Not only did the television stations have the national wrestling programs, but they also had local 'rasslin'. While I had Scott Baio and Rex Smith pin-ups taped to my bedroom walls, the locals fell in love with the local overweight foaming at the mouth 'rasslers. I didn't get it.

Two years later, when we moved to Yankton, an extremely cliquey town by all standards, I had difficulty finding babysitting or any kind of job. I resorted to Rent-a-Kid, the local job service program for youngins. My first and last job through Rent-A-Kid was a cleaning job for a middle aged lady in a housecoat. She lacked social skills and I suppose it was worth the meager wages I was paid for her to recline on the sofa while I toiled away at her pink bathroom and yellow kitchen. She led me to the bathroom that reeked of old and fresh piss. I looked and looked and couldn't find any cleaning solution. I invaded her time and asked meekly what she would like me to use for cleaning solution. Why, strawberry shampoo, of course! How stupid of me! Since experiencing this disgusting odor compound of strawberry shampoo and piss, I have been unable to tolerate the waxy smell of fake strawberry. Why, I wondered, after obviously all these years of filth had she picked this weekend to pay someone so scantily to clean her house? I had to scrape away at black circles of chewed gum stuck to the floor in the kitchen. All the lime and dirt layers in the bathroom were slowly penetrated by my sweat and the strawberry shampoo. So desperate was I for a job, that I didn't call my family to pick me up, but stuck with it. I think it was an eight hour job rewarded for some reason by meager wages and a disapproving look. That will do, I guess. Never did I contact rent-a-kid again.

My next job was babysitting for a nurse with 3 children. Their two girls were very well behaved and had a list of chores that were quite complex for for 7 and 9 year olds. The boy, on the other hand, treated with more of a "boys will be boys" attitude, was a monster not made to mind.

Somewhere in there I babysat for this toddler. Her parents were the type that gave her free reign. I should have realized at this point in my life, my tendency for OCD. They allowed her to play with a deck of cards. She bent them and threw them all over the place. I wanted to crawl out of my skin! What a mess!

Another babysitting job I had was for this couple that went out a lot. She was quite the lush! One night, she asked me to babysit. It was a school night and I preferred not to do that. She begged and begged and I eventually said yes. She promised she would be home by 10:00 at the latest. She wasn't home until after 2:00 am, then yelled at me because I said I needed to get right home. Back then we didn't really have concern for drunken adults. We knew the risks for ourselves, but I didn't think twice about this slurring, swearing woman driving me home. I don't think that she compensated for the late night with pay, either.

My next babysitting job was when I was 15. I was the kind of babysitter that cleaned the house and did the dishes and made it all nice for the parents. She was the manager of the movie theater in Yankton. She gave me a job there for $2.85 an hour. This was better than the $1.50 an hour I got for babysitting her kids!! I must have worked there only a couple of nights before I figured out that she wasn't scheduling me any hours at the theater because she needed me to babysit. Let me do the math... Nope!

So, I applied and got a job at Sunshine in Yankton on my 16th birthday! That was great! I was now making $3.35 an hour. I remember the boss there. Her name was Vi Larson. She was short, and like most short women I knew, was quite assertive. She had a beehive that attempted to make up for the short stature, and if that didn't do it, she ran a tight ship. Some famous Vi quotes - I remember them to this day - are:
"We all work when we're sick!"
"To whom it may concern..." on a note posted on the time clock, followed by something someone wasn't supposed to be doing and ending with: "You know who you are! And that means you!! And I mean it!!!"

This woman could strike fear in the hearts of monsters!

Update on 13 year old pot smoker

Jess's mother said she isn't going to do anything about it because of her negative experience when her mother tried to put her in rehab when she was in high school.

What a good friend!!

Poetic Justice

In my life, there have been a few cases of poetic justice. There should be more.

The manager that told me to go @#$% myself, later being fired.

The manager I was assistant to that called me at work, one hour after she was off drunk off her butt telling me she couldn't stand me that was fired for that and other drunken dialogs.

The bachelor supervisor that was so indifferent to moms and their need to be home with sick children who, not 2 years later found himself married, with a child that in her infancy began having seizures - requiring him to leave to go to the doctor or the hospital. (No, I don't wish that on anyone, but I realize that anything short of that, or something like it, would not have sunken in. Thankfully it was a temporary condition that she will outgrow.)

The manager that told me that what I do on my own time is NOT my business - because I was attending classes after my shift was over and pocketed the tips customers left for me up at the register, being later fired and charged with embezzlement.

I now have a wish for some poetic justice:

I wish for Jessica's mother to meet a man, have him move in with her, have his child(ren) come for visitation, love this man's children, help them with homework and other various situations - like their mother physically and verbally abusing them, pick them up from school so there is more time to help them with homework, have them treat her like crap, treat her daughter like crap, break things in her house that are precious to her, be left out of any important aspect of their lives, be told she has no rights, be told by their mother that she can't use her own phone because they are complaining about her to their mother, comfort these children when their parents are fighting, have birthday parties for them, be bad-mouthed by their mother to them and the man, be the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong in the mother and the children's lives, try to protect herself from the kicking, destructive, foul-mouthed, lying flunking-school children who call their mother and tell her that they have been stabbed, because when they were kicking her, their legs scraped her fingernails, only to hear later that their mother told the man that he should have stuck up for the children.

There's more, but I think that will suffice. I am glad the weekend is over. Time to finish my homework. Oh, and if you are a woman dating a man with children and his ex-wife or mother of his children is the psychob@#$% from hell, politely excuse yourself from the relationship and move on.

I think Brian is looking for a place of his own. I hope so. It sounds like he wants to live close by to see the dogs. Hmmm... I don't know if that would work.


But to end on a positive note, somewhat, does anyone else have any stories of poetic justice in their lives? Any wishes for poetic justice? Please help me not sound so evil here!!

Speeding through my homework

I am getting back on track and trying to get caught up on homework. As you can guess, I am slow and steady... I just hope I can win the race!

Should be feeling better soon

I went to the doctor and found out why I may be tired. My hypothyroidism has gotten worse, I'm anemic and I have a fever - probably due to the ear infection. I have also gotten fed up with the constant pill popping for heartburn and will be getting an upper GI soon. (Wouldn't it be nice to drink orange juice again? Or even when I have those rare cravings for grapefruit...) I hate getting old. All of this explains the tired and the feeling of being overwhelmed and the thyroid could explain some of the depression. Heck the whole tired thing explains the depression. I am not used to that. I am looking for some recipes for foods rich in iron and possibly Vitamin C and B12. (The latter two aid in the absorption of iron)

More Darkness

Okay, I have to apologize for not being able to get out of this slump. If it is bothering you, think how much it is bothering me. If its not one thing another. One bright spot was when Jennifer, a girl at work that is in another department, asked me for words of wisdom. She is a very intelligent girl that just can't seem to move up. She is so nice. My boss wouldn't hire her because she didn't have an accounting degree. I don't know what that matters. As long as she is intelligent, she can do what we do. Actually, I told Jennifer that she shouldn't get upset about it because I am looking at getting out of the area and I really wouldn't want her to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

So, offering some sage advice and sharing my mantra to "Do one thing everyday towards your goal(s)." seemed to help her and me, too. I hate people to feel that where they are is "it". It isn't. There is so much more out there. We are just not used to encountering it and get in our ruts and begin to feel there is no way to move up in our fish bowl. We need to take a vacation and get our heads away from the mindset that is our ticking clock day after day. We need to see what else is there and what more we want to do.

Anyway, back in my fishbowl of a house... I suppose I should start from the beginning. After Jess was discovered to be smoking pot, two days later, she got appendicitis. Big guy, that was BAD timing. Because she is so far, off the hook. She was in the hospital for 2 days and got the sympathy of everyone and was given $40 towards her pay-as-you-go phone to solicit more sympathy. When she was in the hospital, her mother spoon fed her and held the straw to her lips so the child didn't have to do anything at all. When she came home, she laid down all day long for 4 days. A big dispute happened when I said that she needed to sleep in her bed over here. We don't have a whole lot of seating over here and I just don't think that it is a good idea for a kid who can't even sit up 6 days after a simple appendectomy to lay on the couch watching tv all night long when she needs her sleep. So, Friday, after not sitting up for 7 days, she got to go back to school. Friday night, she was exhausted and Brian said that he needed her to have the couch. I went to my room to study, stating only that I wanted to watch Bill Maher at 10:00 pm. Brian said that wouldn't be a problem, because he was putting her to bed at 9:00. That came and went and she put up a huge fight because she "wasn't ready to be alone yet". In other words, I want the couch, the service and the t.v. for as long as I can milk it. When she threw her tantrum, I went back upstairs. I get tired of sending myself to my room because of her temper tantrums.

Saturday was a temper tantrum about her phone. She used up her $40 worth of time in one week and was demanding more. I, upstairs once again, heard that she kept turning the tv off to throw her tantrum. Not knowing that he was rewarding this behavior, Nick relented when she begged him for $20 more for the phone. (He had been working during the multiple temper tantrums) She said she doesn't have to pay him back and he says she does. She has no income.

Tonight she texted her dad that her boyfriend doesn't want to see her anymore because they can't spend any time together. She said it was her dad's fault.

On top of this, I got a phone call from the high school stating that Nick has missed at least one class today. Lovely. He is also failing 2 classes. He is supposed to graduate this year.

Okay, so I should be happily looking forward to this coming weekend with no children, right? Nope. Laura (Brian's ex) said that she has to work this weekend and he has to stop being a part time parent. (This is the woman that tried to KEEP him from seeing his daughter for many years. The woman that would hire a sitter and tell him he couldn't watch her while she took off for weekends with her boozing friends) Now she wants him to be a full-time parent??? She is the one that spoiled the crap out of her daughter this past week and made dad pay for it. Now she's leaving the mess of a child with us again. I am fit to be tied. I need a break. I asked Brian if Laura could have her mother come and take care of her. Apparently it is supposed to snow this weekend, so her mother won't come. I think that Laura can take Jess to her mother's then! I think Brian is at his breaking point. I know I am.

Anyway, with all the crap going on, I am not caught up on all my studies like I planned on being at this time. I was planning on turning in at least 2 more Urban Psyche assignments in during Spring Break and getting a chapter ahead in Psyche. Now I am living a chapter of some psyche experiment gone bad.

Hopefully it will help that I got this out. Right now I don't feel much better. I feel wrung out like an old rag on its last leg. I have been tired all day, now my nerves are shot and I am wired, unsleepy, unable to concentrate.

It is so hard to read when I am like this. I read over and over again and still don't absorb. I should take up yoga.

Thank you everyone

I appreciate your support and your words of encouragement/discouragement at this time of bleck. I'm not much into much, including blogging. So, I will close and do my homework until another whim reaches me.

Is anyone interested in taking cooking classes? Wine tasting classes? Stained glass classes? Hmm...Time for a new adventure sometime.

A

Bleck

Nothing to say to match this photo. Today I just have miscellaneous ramblings.

Yesterday Ben and I were sitting on the couch working on our homework:
Ben: {drops his pencil}
Mom: "I hate Mondays"
Mom: {spills her coffee}
Mom: "I hate Mondays"
Ben: {Breaks pencil lead}
Mom: "I hate Mondays"
Ben: {smirks and nods}
Mom: {drops book}
Mom: "I hate Mondays"
Ben: {smiles and nods}
6:00 News: "Dick Cheney went to the hospital with a pain in his leg. The pain apparently was caused by a blood clot in his leg. Cheney caught the clot early enough that he avoided it lodging in his lungs or heart, sparing himself a possibly fatal outcome..."
Mom and Ben: {in unison} "I hate Mondays" {followed by laughter}

The cat is so naughty lately. She stands in the middle of the doorway so the dogs can't get to their water bowl in the kitchen. Sage lays down a safe distance away and whines. I have to get up and move the cat. When the dogs come in from their walk, the cat is sitting in the middle of the front doorway waiting to hit each of them and hiss as they enter. Today she was at the top of the stairs. When the dogs come in from their walk, they always want to make sure that I am still there. They run throughout the house to find me. Since I was upstairs the cat decided the perfect strategic location of the morning was at the top of the stairs. Tonight when I was walking out of the kitchen, she was on the island. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her swat at me. I turned around and she let out the most innocent "meow". As I started to walk away, she started to swat again. Once again, the most innocent "meow". I kept going and she swatted again. I guess I am not seeing why they call female dogs bitches....

I am really trying to get out of the dark cloud that has been hovering over me. I don't get it. Why are things bothering me so much? Maybe it is because they are big things. I am so tired. I feel like a wrung out old washcloth. This weekend I framed several of my photos in their long awaiting frames. I thought that would cheer me up. Nope. I cleaned the house and did almost all the laundry. If you know me, you will know that it just isn't good enough. I could still find dirt. (I am seriously thinking of going minimalist instead of eclectic junk store.) I did some things that were on the back burner - nope. I feel just drained here. Perhaps I need something outside...but then again I snowblowed two neighbors and us after the blizzard... That should have helped... But, no. What is it? Do I need a trip to Zandbroz? Hell, I got my new iPod and haven't even listened to anything yet. I haven't put my pictures on it yet. Hmmm..... What to do. I have my presentation to work on. My lovely powerpoint presentation for Psyche. I have the intro and the conclusion, just need to work on the meat of it - oh and actually start putting things on the computer. I am the luckiest student in the class! I get to use my laptop for my presentation. No junk drives, no hassle, no figgerin' out how to get a PC to work like the rest of them.

Well, I had better get to work. I have procrasted long enough.

Okay, I think I need a primal scream! But who has the energy...

Patting Myself on the Back

I am taking a break from the downers of the week to announce that I made the dean's list at USD. It is a good thing that I had today off to catch up on the newspapers that I am catching up on. I needed some good press and good news after this week. It has been tough to say the least, but I won't go into it right now.