This is why my mom's generation was so messed up

I mean, not the only reason. Religion was part of it, too.

I was surprised while watching this, I actually remembered a couple of them.

Making Connections

So I told you about spending my birthday money on a sweater for my mom. (Scroll down if you missed it, it's the next post).

And my brain finally made a connection that I've been searching for since June of 1976.
Took me a long time to get there, huh?

My parents occasionally decided we kids were going to 'earn' an allowance. This happened multiple times, and was always the same story.

It was going to be five dollars every month. For the three months or so they continued to pay the allowance for all the chores we did, they'd come back a day or so later and 'borrow' the money back from us.

Did they then pay us back?

So as you've probably gathered, I did not have an allowance or any way to get small amounts of cash as I was growing up. There weren't jobs for teens in our small town. Apart from the yearly birthday/Christmas money, I was broke all year.

Forget buying clothing, I couldn't even buy a candy bar on my way home from school.

In June of 1976, an acquaintance who'd graduated from high school three or four years earlier asked me to sing at her wedding. I accepted, and learned the song (These Are The Best Times from Walt Disney's Superdad) in a couple sessions with the pianist.

Attended the wedding on June 12th all by myself. 

The only other wedding I'd been to was my aunt Sue Ann's. I was 4 years old at the time and all I remember from that was a straight pin still in the waistband of the yellow satin dress they'd made for me as the flower girl. Damn thing poked me all afternoon and I kept telling my mom and she kept shushing me.

So when I arrived at the church to sing and an usher asked me which side, bride or groom, I had no idea what he was even asking. Funny.

Once he figured out who I was, he seated me in the second row at the end, near the  piano. Sensible.

So I sang my song. (link leads to a YouTube video) 
I still remember all the lyrics. 
The piano score was much nicer than the organ that's in the background on this version, but you get the idea.

After the wedding, the father of the bride was walking around handing envelopes to the pianist, the minister, the guy who had helped park cars. He walked to me and handed me an envelope, too.

I had no idea that I was going to be paid to sing. 
No one had told me.
There was a fifty dollar bill in that envelope.

That was the most money I'd ever held in my hand. 
It was a FORTUNE to me. 
I was stunned.

I was really excited because it meant I could have some new clothes to start school in the fall. If you've ever been a teenage girl, you can probably relate. Heck, if you've ever been a teenager you probably can. 

Later that week, as my mom drove to the grocery store with me, she asked me why I hadn't bought a birthday present for my dad. She told me that I had hurt his feelings when I was being 'selfish' by wanting to spend all the money on myself.

"Very selfish," she said. "I thought you knew better than that."

It was a weird thing, felt like it just came from nowhere. I couldn't figure out why he'd say that, he'd never mentioned us buying him presents before. Why would a parent even expect that?

But after writing the post the other day about spending my birthday money on my mom, I realized that my dad was jealous! He remembered that I'd done that only six months prior, and here I was with FIFTY dollars and it was his birthday and I didn't do anything for him! What an ungrateful brat, huh?

It was only 18 months later that I left home.

I haven't thought about the 'why didn't you spend your money on your father' story in a long time, but it's finally clear to me why that happened in the first place.

Huh.

A long time ago...

I turned 15 in December of 1975.

I've talked a little here about money and Mr. Selfish, aka my father, and not having decent clothes as a kid/teenager. I don't mean 'waaah, I didn't get the 50 dollar jeans' either.

Nope. I had two pairs. Both getting worn out between the thighs, getting awfully thin in the butt and I did my laundry every other night. ALL my clothes into the washer every other night. Two shirts, three pairs of underwear, two bras and two pairs of jeans.


I usually ended up having to use some of my brother's tube socks because I only had two pairs of socks, too.

They were multi purpose tube socks. 
When it got cold, we wore them as mittens.
Bonus: they were extra long, so when we outgrew our winter coats, there was still some sort of covering on our arms. Helpful when it's four degrees outside.

My mom didn't have a lot of clothes, either. The things she wore were things she'd been wearing since I was a little kid. The same dresses (most of which were purchased by my grandparents or great grandparents as gifts) and the few same shirts and pants.

She was working full time as a police dispatcher in our little town. She had mentioned more than once that she was chilly during the swing and graveyard shifts. The building wasn't properly insulated and the heating system was old.

So the year I turned 15, my grandparents sent me a birthday check for fifteen bucks.

I cashed it and went to the only clothing store in town, Quisenberry's.  A quick search told me there were a total of eight Quisenberry's department stores, and that one still exists in Ontario, Oregon.

So I wanted to get some new pants. That's why I went shopping. 

The Junior department was located on the left side of the store all the way in the back.

To get there, one had to walk through the ladies wear. On my way through, I saw some sweaters. They were the longer cardigans that had no buttons, instead tying closed with a little knitted belt. Can't call it a sash... sounds pretentious, don't you think? 

And I spotted a sweater that would be perfect for my mom. It was a dark blue and tan, with a vertical pattern of cable knit.

$14.99.

I had a hard time getting that sweater, I really wanted something for myself.
But I kept thinking about my mom sitting in the cop shop and shivering in the Eastern Oregon winter.

::sigh::

So I bought it.

When I gave it to her, she cried.
I didn't see it as a big deal at the time, and I didn't feel like I was being generous or philanthropic or whatever, either.

I really did want some pants, though. Haha.

So I was scrolling through social media today. 
Came across a pic of my mom playing BINGO at her assisted living facility.
And she's wearing the sweater.

I don't know if there's a moral to the story other than the quality of garments was a lot better back then.

 

If you enlarge the photo you can see the school across the street.
If you were to look into the first set of windows on the left, you'd be looking into my first grade classroom. We left that town at the end of my 2nd grade year and my visit in March was the first time I've been back since 1968.

Employer Comparison.... Then

I didn't expect to love this work when I applied at Champions (a division of KinderCare) in 2004.

We needed a little extra cash.
I figured it would fit into my schedule, I could still homeschool my kids and get them to various activities and bonus... I knew how to babysit* already. 

They were only able to offer me 10 hours a week at first, which was great.
That was October. By mid-December, I was working 30 hours a week.
Lots of turnover in day care.
Haha, trust me. Not everyone is cut out for it.

*After I started the job, I realized how wrong I was about the whole babysitting thing. 
There are people doing the work who haven't figured that out (and run crappy programs because of it), and some who took the job thinking it would be easy, but they get sifted out like (most of) the weevils in a sack of flour. 

Show of hands... who hasn't found bugs in their food on occasion? 
There are bugs in the day care business, too.

It was a wonderful fit for me and I enjoyed it. 

It didn't (and still doesn't, 22 years later) feel like work most of the time.

I worked in four or five different programs at first. 

Monday Here and Tuesday There and on my way to Somewhere Else on Wednesday only to get a call en route and a request to be at Another Place Entirely.

Being sent to several different sites is part of the beginner game in this line of work. 
They send you where they need coverage to keep the adult/child ratio legal. It's not easy, you don't know the kids, you don't know where things are kept, you don't know the specific rules of the program. Mostly you're just a warm body to keep the program legal. 

Ha, strictly speaking, Champions wasn't as concerned about legal ratio as they should have been. 

Still aren't, I keep in touch with a few former co-workers. I have no way of knowing how often they run out of ratio now, but I can tell you for sure they do it, they don't report it, and although those rules exist for a reason they DO. NOT. CARE.

Champions is still concerned with only one thing. 
Revenue.

I could tell them at least four ways for their company to make a lot more money without having to invest a damn dime, not that I would bother. 

I'd rather see the company fall apart. 
Unfortunately it won't, but they do restructure every six years or so to get out from under a bunch of discrimination lawsuits. It's possible they don't like people who look physically handicapped. 

One case I know personally, the site director used a wheelchair and was written up for 'not hanging children's art high enough' on the walls. Did that dumb cow Sherri offer to help? Hell no. What a bitch.

Assholes.

Anyway.
When I first started this job, some programs were calmer than others. The program I was routinely sent to on Wednesdays was a screaming madhouse. If that had ended up being my daily placement after a few months, I would have quit. 

I sure wouldn't be where I am now. The site director was a nice enough person, but she was terrible at keeping kids occupied. It was loud and chaotic from the time school was out until I left when the numbers dropped to 15 kids.

But Sunshine, who directed the only site that didn't make me feel crazy, asked our manager if I could be placed at her program permanently when her assistant quit. 

That was the beginning of a five year partnership. 
I learned from the best, seriously. I did not agree with everything she did, she was more school oriented in some ways, but she respected the kids and treated them with kindness and an appreciation for their individual needs. 

The site had been open for a little over a month when I began working there, the school was brand new that fall. I helped her build the program from a sixteen-kid group to 39 daily. By the time I'd been there two years, there was already a full program and a fall waiting list when school was out in June.

I didn't want to be a site director, said no at least eight times I can remember over the years, but I finally caved and accepted a site director position in August, 2009.

I stayed there until August 2016 and seriously, I think I'd still be there if it hadn't been for the absolute shitbag of a manager we got stuck with. ( The above mentioned Sherri/shitty manager is Sherri Burks and not only is she a terrible manager, if you believe rumors (my own beliefs are dependent on who's telling me the story and I am still in touch with more than one person who knows and I DO believe every shitty thing I've heard about her) she was eventually fired. Of course it was only 10 years too late for a whole bunch of people. 

Champions is a company with nothing but money-grubbing butt sniffers (my son coined that phrase when he was seven years old, I don't remember the context but it's funny, dammit) in charge.  

It's a toxic work environment when one has to deal with the idiots from corporate, but I mostly got to do what I wanted in running my site and the school itself felt like a second home, so I put up with more crappy treatment than I probably should have. 

I don't regret working there so long or so hard because I worked for the kids, but the company was (and still is) so disrespectful to the people who do the actual work that I'm not unhappy to have gotten away from them, either.

One of the ways they were disrespectful to us besides absolute shit wages was coverage of adult to child ratios. 
When I began working there, if more than 15 kids were expected after school, two adults were scheduled to be on site. 

If the second adult showed up and there were 15 kids or fewer, that second adult was given the option to stay for two hours even though the number of children was below legal ratios or they could leave.

Meaning the person on site was there alone and could not use the bathroom or take any kind of a break during the four or five hour shift.

About a year later, the company started sending the second person home even if they'd have preferred to stay if they weren't needed for ratio. So you could make child care arrangements for your own kid, get dressed, drive to a school within 10 miles or so, go into the building and be told to leave.

Spending money to show up and not being paid for doing so. 
Just one more shitty little thing they did to people.

You KNOW the salaried managers and regional managers and corporate posterior-smoochers were being paid for mileage and oh, they also had a paid-for-by-the-company car to drive around and nitpick everyone's work. 
It probably goes without saying that none of them could have done my job.

They were well-paid to use dismissive phrases like, "All they're doing is playing."

Vicki was an idiot and a jerk. Learned about kids from a book. No empathy for them and very little emotional intelligence/compassion/understanding. Bah.

Okay, so I learned how to work with kids. 
I thought I knew how. 
I didn't.
 
Worked for Champions for 12 years, would be there still if it hadn't been for the worst manager I've ever seen. Still, 12 years of paid training is 12 years of paid training.

Sherri apparently was pissed off that I quit and didn't let her know at the end of the school year. 

I didn't know at the end of the school year that I was leaving, actually.
Even though they treated me like crap once that ignorant cow took over, I figured I'd stay and outlast her.

But then I found a job that seemed like a better fit and wrote her a great resignation letter.
Not that she learned anything from it.

I'd still like to kick her in the taco.

Sadly, the ability to kick that high is probably lost to me forever. Doesn't matter, I won't get an opportunity to kick her any time soon.

I didn't get the new job until mid August that year, but I knew in plenty of time to give her at least three week's notice. I didn't bother doing that, instead I gave only 10 days.  I did that for my families, not for the company, I sent letters to them all. I figured word would get back to her that I was leaving, so I did the courtesy of letting her know via email.

In hindsight, I should have just not shown up on the first day of school. Since she blacklisted me after that anyway. 
"Not eligible for rehire".

I heard from more than one of my families that the program 'went to hell' after I left.
Not surprised.

About a year ago a reporter from a national news organization saw a post from me on social media regarding my experiences working for the KinderCare conglomerate. 

I strongly recommended to a person that working for someone besides KC was a good idea. I stated that there were many wonderful people doing the actual work, but that KC is a toxic corporation in my opinion and most people would be treated with more respect elsewhere.

I gave the reporter some information, taking care to keep it factual, and connected her with other people I'd worked with. Some of them still work there, some are no longer with the organization.

I've never seen an article about everything, but to be fair, I haven't looked, either.

Huh. Guess I should go surf the internet.

Okay, I'm back.

I didn't find anything with the reporter's byline, but I sure found a lot of stuff about toxic KinderCare centers.

Thing is, a lot of the people who work there actually care about kids. 
But management doesn't give a shit.

One more tidbit about them.

One summer, Brashley did a stupid and insisted on roller skating with the kids. She said she fell in the bathroom, ( still don't believe it)  so she had to go to a doctor. 

He put her on half a percocet twice a day, so she was bleating about taking mind-altering drugs and how she couldn't possibly work with kids. She ended up working at KinderCare corporate (another fucking waste of money, that place).

She was there doing filing when Jeanne and her cohorts, Asbury-who-we-all-called-Assberry and Vicky learned after writing a letter to the state that they didn't have to pay us for all of our training hours. 
And not required to pay for the courses we took (you can find them online and have them count toward your yearly training hours requirements) at all.

Something else that had made us feel a tiny bit more respected was being taken away.

Jeanne and Assberry high-fived each other when they got their response email from the state.

They were thrilled that they wouldn't have to pay us for our yearly required trainings.

Assholes.

I called Rob Martin on that one, though. 
Told him that if I wasn't worth an extra couple hundred bucks a year with all that I contributed, that maybe I shouldn't be working there.

After that, our trainings were still paid for, but we weren't paid for the hours we spent taking them unless it was a corporate sponsored session.

I'll say it again.

Assholes. 

Imagine Dragons and Valentines

The school district did some great planning this year. They've taken advantage of federal holiday weekends and added 'teacher planning' days on the other side. So if the holiday is a Monday, the Friday before that is also a day off.

Another four day weekend. 

I appreciate the extra time, although it's not likely that I'll do anything productive with those bonus hours, especially not today. Eric isn't feeling well, so he was coughing all night long. He got up about 1 and went to sleep in his recliner because he felt bad about continually waking me up, but I don't sleep well when he's not next to me, so I kept waking up anyway. I have a headache and really want to go back to bed, in case you wondered.

We'll go grocery shopping today. Yippee.

Way back in the days of the AOL chat rooms, I hosted two chats a week in Homefront Hall, which was the homeschool chat room.  I 'met' people from all over the place. Some of us are still in touch 26 years later. We still meet up on Friday evenings, over the years chatting from Maine, Texas, Colorado, Florida, California, and Oregon. Those were the regulars, anyway. We had a worldwide group. Ah, the memories.

It's down to three of us now. None of us want to give it up.

We've been together through raising toddlers and getting the kids through puberty and dating and learning to drive and getting married and the kids having babies and lives of their own. Cancer treatments and surgeries and car accidents, divorces and loss of other family members. Pretty sure we know more secrets about each other after only meeting online than people who know us in person are aware of.

None of us still have children at home. 
But the friendship has lasted through many years. 
We don't like missing our Friday chats. 
We all refer to it as Sacred Chat Night.

So I'm doing groceries, possibly a nap, chat with some friends.
I'm ready for a little quiet time.

In case you missed it, I work with kids. 
Which is not a quiet occupation.

Saturday is Valentine's Day. Or valenTIMES day, if you listen to about half my kids. 
One of them tried to correct me yesterday. 

So I grabbed one of her cards. 

Showed her the actual word on the card, "See, Paige? It's the letter 'N'." 

She said, "I know, but you say it valentiMes." 

I can't argue with that. Doesn't matter, she'll eventually figure it out. 
Meanwhile, it's cute that she's so insistent.
She's five.
There's time to catch on.

Since there's no school today, that means the kids had their class parties yesterday. 

If your mind doesn't immediately go to candy, it should. 

Our rule is yes, you can have A PIECE of candy *if* you eat snack first. Then you may get out your bag or box of valentines with all the little prizes and look at all of the stuff you got but you already had your piece of candy so please save the rest of it for home. 

If your adult mind didn't get suspicious that there might be candy-sneaking, you probably don't work with children.

I was kept busy reminding them that they would be free to eat their candy after they went home. "Or in the car if your parents will let you. But while you are here, just one piece, please."

They had little bouncy balls and crazy bendy straws and squishy animals and little uv flashlights. Tiny stuffed animals. Lip gloss. Little knock-off LEGO kits. There was clear cellophane packaging all over the damn place when we cleaned up.

Not fair. 
All I got when I was a kid were paper cards. 
Dammit.

I have three kinder girls, all three were wearing floofy dresses with hearts on them. One in pink, one in red and one in lavender. They really were adorable.

Even more adorable when I looked up and saw the three of them pretending to be ice skaters in the large open area of the cafeteria, gliding and twirling and trying to look elegant.

I so love their imaginations.
 
Five (sometimes six) of the older kids have some huge imaginations, too.
Due to differing attendance, they're not always able to be there on the same day.

All of them are dragons. 
They 'fly' around the room. 
Roaring, flaming, rolling on the floor in a pile, discussing what powers they have. They have elaborate stories, enthusiastically planning the game during snack time and putting 100% of their imaginations into it during the course of the afternoon. When all of them are in attendance, they even skip our planned art activities. 
They're some of the more artistic kids, too. 
But the lure of 'the game' is bigger to them than making stuff.

I try to allow them as much freedom as I can, but I have to remind them to slow down, to confine their flight patterns to less-inhabited areas of the room, to slow down, to please remember we can't have full contact dragoning, to please slow down, to keep their claws away from each other's actual bodies, to slow down and also to please stop running.

The weather has been amazing, in the 50s. So when we go outside, we stay out longer. Yesterday they had an extra 20 minutes to run and roar and fly. With a whole playground and athletic field for space, they did manage to get rid of some of their energy. I did not have to ask them to slow down on the playground. 

 

My sidekick, William, was out on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Joe, the guy the company sent out to fill in wasn't a lot of help. Between having to repeat every single instruction I gave him, having him wander off mid-task and seeing him standing RIGHT NEXT to several boys fighting over magnatiles and ignoring it, I was happy to see the end of the day.

He seems like a nice enough guy, he's just... not terribly capable. I am not sure what's up with him. We are chronically short-staffed, and when people are out, they have to cover the shift with whoever they can, so he was sent to my site. 

When he's the sub, I just figure I'll be doing all the work. So far, I've been correct.
My manager was there yesterday afternoon for a bit, though, and she was writing down the things she observed.

  

Seriously, Blogger, WTAF, why won't you let me format with left align?? WHY????

I cut/pasted so I could add a smiley dragon and my words won't go back in a straight line. I'm sure one could draw a comparison from that to my personal life, but whatever.

I close with my all-time favorite valentine. The child who made it is now a college graduate. 
Back then, she was one of the enthusiastic artists who made every day into a craft project. She made a valentine for every kid in the program that day.

It's been a lot of years and it still makes me smile.

So. How are you doing?

I decided to vent a little.
You don't have to read it. :)

We don't celebrate the holidays anymore, we don't have small humans to spoil and hug and bake cookies with, we don't need more of anything around the house. 
Too much stuff as it is.

No Christmas tree. 
I mean, we *have* one, it's in the shed. 
I probably need to find it a home. 
We're done with it.

I did decorate the kitchen table. 
Put on a Christmas tablecloth on Thanksgiving 'cause that was the one that was clean and haven't removed it. 
The one that had been on the table is still in the laundry room, although it has been washed and folded. 

The other decorations on the table are some boxes containing my new bathroom rugs, a couple gift bags from people who appreciate the care I give their children, some (opened) Christmas cards, I figure if I walk past them ten times a day maybe they'll guilt me into sending a January letter to a few friends, a couple craft items that I brought home but still need to put away until next December... you know, clutter.

I keep looking at it while the mess isn't too bad, saying something like 'oh I'll get this tomorrow' and then not doing it. 

Part of the problem is that I'm once again not feeling great physically. I always have daily pain, which sucks but I usually manage to function. 

What's going on with me since it got cold out is pain that's a lot stronger and I'm having some trouble staying mobile. I went thrift store shopping with Eric yesterday and within about 30 minutes my left knee was full of water and I was limping. I had so much trouble getting my left leg into the car without smacking the car next to me with my door that Eric had to get back out of the car and walk around to my side and hold the door at its widest-without-smacking. Then I had to grab my leg and gently manage to get it into the car. Fun times.

Lots of people have it worse, truly. I know this.
I have medication. I get a lot of rest. 
I have a husband/partner who takes up the slack so I don't have so much to do around the house. 
But it's hard right now physically.

And mentally. 
Christmas is... not my favorite season.

I've been remembering how utterly shitty the holidays were while I was growing up. 
My parents were obsessed with how much money had been spent on our family the year before by various aunties and grandparents, they had these little mental accountants who sat in their grumpy heads and pointed out how cheap they'd look if they didn't reciprocate exactly.

Which no one expected. I had a lot of relatives who, if not wealthy, weren't doing too badly. They could afford to be what my folks saw as extravagant. 

My parents couldn't. 
So the children in the family were shorted so they could spend 50 bucks on Aunt Lorraine, Aunt Jeanne, Grandma Fern.
And no, Christmas shouldn't be all about the presents, and it's not, now. 

But when I was a kid? Yeah. It was. To make it worse, my birthday is exactly two weeks before Christmas. Mom would put on an astounded and cheery tone of voice and say, "Your birthday is so close to Christmas! Instead of a birthday present, we'll get you something really big for Christmas!"

Did they?
Guess.

We had a tyrannical father who escalated so much during the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas that I was just sick to my stomach every day. I was all tied up in knots during school, wanting to retreat and hide wherever I was, not having space anywhere to do so. I never felt safe.

I was scared to death of what crazy shit he'd say or do before we finally got past the holidaze. His mood was not improved by the deaths of his father who died the week before my 13th birthday and then his brother about two years later. He couldn't enjoy the season, he was sad and he was mean. Not a good combination, in case you wondered.

It may be the escalated pain levels and the forced sitting around stuff that causes all this old stuff to bubble up. It may also be that I'm just one of those people who refuses to let go until I've finished processing.

The real work, signified by that overused term, processing, didn't really begin until my dad died a couple years ago. 

I keep remembering things that I'd mostly forgotten. 
I can't say deliberately buried, the memories were there, I just rarely bothered with them.

And it was a long time ago. January 1978, a month after I turned 17, I left home.

Yes, thanks, I've heard all the platitudes.

It's not good for you to hold on to the past. 
Who decided that it's not good for me? Did they know me then? They sure as hell don't know me now or they would not suggest such a stupid thing. Do they have any idea of what happened?

You only have one (father/mother). 
Wow, you did that on remarkably few clues! 
Are you Sherlock Holmes?

They did the best they could. 
What are you basing this on? 
Your own experience? 
You can't base your opinion of their parenting on what you know or what you did with your own kids.

At a minimum, at least one parent who did not stand by and watch abuse might have been, I don't know... better? 

This one has always been a favorite (not really, that's sarcasm) Be the bigger person! 
Yeah, that's right. I should say only good things while I know exactly what was said by my parents to everyone in the small town after I issued an ultimatum and left. People still believe it today.

Reach out and mend your fences. 
Screw you. 
Mend your own. 
My fences are fine, although I call them BOUNDARIES now.

Which leaves Forgive and Forget.
No.
I'm not Jesus and I don't have Alzheimer's.

So you remember my mom has a caregiver named Sheila, right? Only during our texting marathons during a lot of evenings, Mom never spells it the the same way twice. Shayla, Sheela, Shiela, Shiliea... it's pretty creative. 

I didn't correct Mom, no point in it and it doesn't matter anyway. A person with dementia isn't concerned with how well they spell things. And I knew who she meant, even when she called her Shella. We rarely message now, she has lost a lot of her cognitive skills which were never very good in the first place.

But Lyssa and Matt and I have seen the humor in it and during our text/message conversations, we refer to Sheila with a lot of different two syllable words.

So this past week my mom told me that Sprocket doesn't approve of me.
Apparently the fact that I "haven't bothered" (exact words from Slappy, passed on by my mother) to come over and help pack things for Mom's upcoming move to assisted living makes me "look bad".

Scabby used to live in the area where I live now, and SHE managed to drive over to John Day and visit HER parents when they were still alive!! Why, it was at least once a month! That proves that I just don't care.

I know with certainty that the same person who did not defend her children against her husband didn't bother saying anything to Sheetrock in defense of her daughter. Me. The one who has a lot of physical shit going on and wouldn't be any goddamn use helping to pack anyway.

The one who still works full time outside the home despite the aforementioned physical issues. The one who actually needs the money she earns. Yes, I love my job, but it's to my benefit to help bring money in. 

It's not even any use to explain it to my mom. She probably won't believe it and wouldn't dare stand up and say something to her 'care' giver, either.

Speaking of care, I have heard the way this stupid cow speaks to the elderly dementia patient she's supposed to be helping. If she's there when I talk to Mom on the phone, she's constantly correcting what she says. "No Sally, you did that on TUESDAY, not today!!" 

She is loud and talks over Mom, she corrects her and disagrees with her in the same loud voice and she sounds sarcastic as hell. 
Think Roseanne Barr. 
I've never met Snoopy and I hate her. I may not like my mom much, but she has dementia and that's not how you deal with a person whose mind is slipping.

So I don't want to make the 10+ hour round trip, sleep in a motel that costs me a day's wages, eat shitty restaurant food, be too cold half the time and too warm the other half, get a headache and be exhausted and in even MORE pain when I get home to go hang out with some old woman I don't even like. 

It's even less likely that I'm going to visit her in her new location, which is all the way on the Oregon/Idaho border and more like a 9 hour trip ONE WAY.

Why don't I go see her?  

I just don't care to. 

We don't have anything to talk about, she has about four marbles left rolling around in her brain, she's confused and not sure about anything from one day to the next. The anesthesia from the surgery necessary after her fall last summer scrambled her head pretty well. Same thing started my dad's steep decline. General anesthesia is a really bad thing for old people, you'd think they'd come up with something better, unless of course killing them off is the idea, in which case it's pretty efficient.

So when Mom informed me that I have failed to impress Smacker, I told her, "I don't have any control over what Sheila thinks of me, but I can tell you I don't really give a shit. 
She doesn't know me and doesn't know my life. 
Tell her to fuck off." 

I don't think Mom has told her that, though. Ha. I'm 100% sure Mom didn't jump to my defense when Spooky started bad-mouthing me any more than she defended me from the ogre who was my father, though.

From the sound of it, Sheetrock has done a bit of cleaning out Mom's house on her own. A head start, so to speak.

Steve says a lot of stuff is missing. Mom's jewelry is mostly gone, for example. Obviously we have no way of proving it. Whatever. I don't want her shit.

The old Ford Explorer, complete with poop-stained seats, belongs to Sheila now. Mom breathlessly and excitedly informed me that it has ALL NEW seat covers and a new steering wheel cover and that it's very clean and looks so nice!!!

"She's taking such good care of it!" Mom says, in the same bright tone she uses when Sheila is there and she says, "She's taking such good care of me!"

Sheila is getting PAID to take care of Mom, in case you wondered. An hourly wage that's more than I earn, and no taxes or SS taken out. All in cash.

So anyway, I'm crabby.
I have spent a great deal of the break holed up in what we refer to as The Momcave, but you can call it office space, TV room, dressing room, craft room... pretty much all of those things happen in here. It's chilly, and I can put the space heater under my desk, bundle up and while I'm in here, not hurt as much.

Anyway.
I don't spend my whole life going 'aww gee, my life as a kid was shit' and while I don't like being in constant pain, like I said up there, a lot of people have it worse.

Hopefully I'll start feeling a little better and have some kid stories for you next week. I've been collecting ideas and supplies for a lot of fun things for the young humans and have added 'charge the camera' to my list of shit that needs to get done.

Funny story about that. I have a 15 year old SLR Canon camera. It's a nice camera, and takes wonderful photos.

Every time I bring it to a new program there are several kids who have no idea what it is.

Amusing.

They love having their photo taken, but then they want to see it right away. I don't show it to them, the screen isn't very big and they can wait for the photos to be printed just like I did when I was a kid.

Haha.

So, how are you doing?

 

20

I started writing this blog 20 years ago. 
August 25th, 2005.

I didn't have any particular plan in mind. When I try to recall why I started writing here, I can't figure it out.

I've continued for a few reasons. I'd never been able to keep up with any sort of journal. Being able to look back now on the last 20 years, I'm sorry I didn't, because it would be fun to look waaaaay back.

But for the last 20, I've written about my children, my Girl Scout troop, homeschooling, my work (helping raise other people's children). I have dumped photos here, philosophized (nothing new or life-changing) tie dye, art, friends. It's a chronicle of my life in general, my enjoyment of the young humans I'm entrusted with after school and a place to rant if I need to.

There still is no all-around purpose unless you consider that maybe there shouldn't BE a purpose or underlying goal, in which case I've succeeded magnificently.

I searched a bit and found some things that amused me/made me think/made me feel competent as a writer over 20 years.

Whiskers (mine!!), 
dog butt in our holiday photos,

 the progress of technology and Boob Costas.  

From that post: The man is a dumb ass. Inane comments, (thinking back to the Athens Olympics here and recalling his remark as the team from Djibouti entered the stadium, 'you bet Djibouti'... and the man still kept his job!!) annoying smirk... the worst part is, he takes himself seriously.


The story of a heartbreaking loss of a friend who left behind five children. 

Pie crusts, a new roof on the house, "Dr." Phil (he was an asshole way back when, too) and why we homeschooled. The reasons for continuing had little to do with why we started that particular journey.

From that post:

Open house was the first indication that school was not a lovely experience for Matt. I talked with his teacher (or rather, she talked at me) while Eric toured the classroom with his boy. When I asked her how things were going for him, she started into a recitation of what a pain in the ass he was, although she didn’t use that particular phrase.

With a tight-lipped, tense smile on her face, she said, "Well, I don’t know about Matthew. He has a real problem sitting still. AND! He’s been reversing a few letters! I wonder if we don’t have a little attention deficit on our hands, here. He thinks it’s funny to play with the light switches! He talks in the hall! He chases girls on the playground!"

Imagine how horrified I was to hear that he was behaving like a normal child! Wow, had I done a shitty job as a parent or what!? Chasing girls? OH MY GOD!!!


Camping trips with just the two of us. Dental work. Early Lyssa art.
People who wear too much perfume. 
They tore up my beautiful honeysuckle hedges to put in a sidewalk. They were mostly pigs disguised as men. 

Lyssa made a pink dragon costume.


Look under the cat.

Interesting neighborhood decorations. 
This is a pic of the Jolly Old Elf and his Bighead Alien Baby.
That same neighbor has some interesting ideas about decorating her yard.

Bumper stickers, my brother got my aging parents a Jack Russell terrier puppy ("Jesus Steve, why didn't you just get them a Tasmanian Devil?") Lyssa tried high school and lasted four days, I stepped down from leading a Girl Scout troop, our neighbor Cletus and his crop of half-brights, wildflowers that somehow accidentally magically got transplanted to our yard.

This post about Reese still remains one of my favorite things that I've ever written. I loved that kid so much. He's 24 or 25 years old now. I think of him often and hope he's doing well.

We're all proctologists.

Stories about shoulder surgery. (91 nights in a recliner.) Knee surgeries. Work comp and working for Champions, a division of Kindercare where children most definitely do not come first. Or second. Or third. Not sure they enter into the equation at all at corporate level. Toxic fucking place to work, and no, not just because of work comp. Assholes. I sent a letter to the boss of the bosses of the bosses after I left there. Still took them 10 years to get rid of that whoreible (whoreiffic?) individual. If I ever see her again, I would like to kick her in the taco. I've been blacklisted by Champions, which, while hilarious considering some of the incompetent fucking potatoes they hire as managers, doesn't matter. No way in hell would I ever work for those shitbags again. Eric said that letter was the best 'fuck you' without the use of profanity that he's ever seen. I don't know about that, but it was strangely satisfying and I don't regret it.

I learned to paint during the pandemic.
This is the first one I did from a tutorial online.

I have so many things I've written that we'd be here the next 20 years if I were to try and talk about them and I don't want to do that.

A great deal of this blog has been about the antics and trials and fun of working in after school. I am working on putting things in some sort of coherent form and writing a book.
Every time I go for training and some doofus or doofette talks about how they control their children it makes me crazy. It's always about control, too. Not teaching the kids self-control, but training them to follow adult control.

Meanwhile, regular life happens, too. It's hotter than the first four layers of Hell out there this weekend. The drains are backed up, I was running a load of laundry today and there was a bunch of BLURP BLURP BLURP noise from the bathroom and water had come up in the tub and was blurping in the throne as well.

Eric dumped a bunch of chemical shit down the drain, but he has to go tomorrow morning and rent a piece of equipment to fix the issue.

Dammit.


Okay.
4,622 posts.
4,457 comments. (y'all need to step up your game)
1 kabillion times I have written something down or laughed at kid antics or learned something interesting and said, "I have to put that on my blog!"

20 years.

Huh.

Chuck Mangione

In 1994, Chuck Mangione played at the 4th of July festivities at Ft. Vancouver just across the river from us. 

Lyssa was just a little over a year old and already loved music. She never stayed in one place very long, I spent a lot of time following her around. Busy little thing.

We were wandering around behind the stage (outdoor venue) and listening to the band that was on before Chuck Mangione. 

Lyssa was dancing, you know how babies do... and I saw a bearded guy notice her and smile.

He took the eight or so steps necessary to come and dance with her. He held her little hands and danced her in a circle.
It was adorable.

When the music ended, she was ready to wander off again. She waved at him, he waved back.

We went back to our blanket for our picnic, and the announcer introduced Chuck Mangione.

He came onto the stage, carrying his horn.

It was the bearded guy who'd danced with my baby girl.

I think he was actually wearing that same hat.

Anniversary of Sorts

4th of July, 1980.

We were living in Montrose, Colorado.
Eric and I drove up to Ouray to wander around and then watch the fireworks. Back then (not sure if they do it now) people sat somewhere in the valley while the fireworks were set off from the side of the mountain above. You could sit anywhere in town and watch, the view was great.

We sat on a blanket on the hood of the car and leaned against the windshield. 

Had a Buick sailboat. 
Can't remember what kind, half a minute while I look it up. 
Ah. Electra. Big and black and super comfy.

While we watched the fireworks we started talking about what things would be like after we were married. 

There was no big proposal, no fanfare. Well, unless you count the fireworks.

He bought me a ring that day. 
It had a black diamond, or should say 'has'. I can't wear it now, my fingers, like the rest of me, are no longer small and elegant. It's on the chain with my family tree necklace and I wear it every day.

That was July 4th.
It wasn't even four months later that we were married.
November 1st that same year.

I had no concept of the future, or what it would look like, but I knew who I wanted to be with.

45 years went by awfully fast.

Storytelling

We had training this week for work. As I've mentioned before, it's not an insult that they have us attending trainings more often than I'd like.


I don't mind being there, I mind GETTING there and then staying there.
I'm not a fan of spending a full day on that side of town for a myriad of reasons.

But if I want to continue to do this work (I do) and work for this company (also yes, I do) then the pain in the ass of training sessions is just part of it. Sadly, I have to be there Monday, too. But they called the meeting for 10:30, which beats the hell out of the 9:30 start time we were subjected to yesterday. It would be less of a big deal if I didn't have to deal with the whims of traffic on the 84, I-5 and the 217. If it were in my neighborhood, I wouldn't have to get up so damn early, either.

I know, grouse, grouse, grouse.

Idle question here, if the plural of mouse is mice, why isn't the plural of grouse grice?

I know we've all been to meetings where there's at least one person (sometimes more than one) who knows a tidbit or has a question about pretty much everything on the agenda. I can't be the only person who finds it annoying.  There's a difference between needing an answer and needing attention, but some of the people I've met in this business are obliviots.

So there was a bit of that going on.

One of the things our trainer wanted to show us was the difference between a kid being difficult or a kid acting like a child. He told us an amusing story about a child in one of his classes (former elementary school teacher) telling another child to 'suck it'. Repeatedly. Not quietly. And instead of going, "WHAATTTT???!" he investigated. He found out that the kid had a paper cut on his finger and that his friend was trying to help it feel better by telling him to suck it. He wasn't being vulgar or obnoxious.

He asked us if we had stories. I'm sure we all do, and usually I don't volunteer anything, I want OUT OF THERE as soon as we can, but I had to tell one. Had to. If you've been here awhile, you know this one. If you haven't, well, hope it makes you laugh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From this post, November 2016~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Caden's dad came to pick him up this evening, he smelled very strongly of cigarette smoke. He left a cloud of odor behind in our tiny room.
After he left, two of the three boys who were still there had some comments to make.

Dane waved a hand theatrically in front of his face.
"Man, that guy stinks!!"

Colin agreed. "Eww! What is that smell?!"

Billy said, "It's cigarettes. My dad smokes, too."

Dane said, "WHY??!?"

Billy answered, "Well, he says it's because the smoke smells good. But," (and here he lowered his voice confidentially), "I think he's just a dick."

I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.. he didn't really call his dad a dick, did he???

So I asked him, "What does that mean?"
He answered, "You know! When you can't stop doing something! You're a dick to it!"

I answered him with, "Yes, it's hard when you're addicted to something. I hope your dad will stop smoking someday."

No, I didn't laugh.
I'm snickering now, though.

Twenty.

If you'd told me 20 years ago when I started this job that I'd still be doing this work, I would not have believed you.

Hell, if you told me right now that I've been doing this for 20 years, I'd find it hard to believe.

But here we are.

I took the job because it fit into my schedule and would give us a little extra money.
No other reasons, really. I figured I could tolerate it for 10 hours a week, which was what they offered me in the beginning.

That was October 10th, 2004. At least I think it was the 10th. Doesn't really matter, I suppose.

By December of that year, I was working 25 to 30 hours a week. For three years in the early part of my kid work, every paycheck I earned went into braces for my kids. Worth every cent. Neither one of them will ever have to go through the crowding and all the issues with Wisdom teeth. And they have great smiles.

It's been helpful financially, but what's been great is how much joy I've derived from what I do.

I know, it's not for everyone. And it's okay if you think I must be missing a chunk of attic insulation to still be having fun working with kids, but I feel fortunate to be doing what I do.

So yeah. October 2004.

Except for the pandemic, that's what I've been doing ever since. During the pandemic, I kept in touch with several of my kids from the program I'd been running. I met up with them once or twice a month with a craft pack I made up. Low contact in the grocery store parking lot, hand them a bag of crafty stuff and then we'd all go our separate directions. Using their parent email accounts, we then exchanged some pictures of the things we made. It was almost like making it in the same room.

So I just accidentally fell into what I was meant to do 20 years ago.

I was greatly helped by being assigned to Sunshine's site. She explained everything she did and taught me a ton of stuff about licensing and the practical knowledge of just keeping kids amused.

It was my choice to stay there as the site teacher for five years, too. I hadn't planned to ever move up. But the idea of health benefits and my own program was eventually what I wanted to do.

Now I've been successfully running after school programs since 2009.
I can't say my employers have all been great, sadly. But I have a good one now. Guess being treated like crap is a good thing, because I wouldn't have moved on if I hadn't had such crummy managers.

Y'all know the saying about how people don't quit companies, they quit managers.
I'd have to agree with that.

I know I won't be doing this for 20 more years, either. I have to admit there are days when it's too much for me physically. Occasionally too much emotionally/mentally, too. Like the past few weeks with Bob.

I have three years until I can collect social security AND make as much money as I can at the same time without penalty. Of course I'll never be wealthy doing this work, but I really can't complain too much, I get paid to play.

How much longer will I do this? Not sure. But I know I'll continue to enjoy it and be glad I can build up young humans and have an excuse to make craft projects at the same time I'm juggling/herding cats.

Wayback Machine

I wish I actually had a Wayback Machine...

Remember that?

Mr. Peabody and Sherman?
Yeah, I'm old.
That used to be one of the only cartoons I really enjoyed. I got the humor of it. The word play. I found the history fascinating as well. I was a weird kid.

I was in my own wayback machine today, remembering some of the first kids I took care of for money.

We lived across the street from a family with two boys. We moved into that little house in 1991.

Steve and Vincent were a little older than Matt (we didn't have Lyssa yet). Vincent was a year older than Matt, Steve was 4 years older.

Vincent was an outgoing kid, he never met a stranger. In fact, my introduction to him was when we'd lived in our little house about a week. One Saturday morning, he knocked on the front door. When I answered the door, he said, "Hey, can your kid play?" Before I could even react, he just walked right into my house. He didn't stay long, I asked him to go tell his mom where he was and to ask her to come over. He left, but didn't bring his mom. It was a week or so before I met her. I'm more cautious now. I would not allow a kid to just walk into my house.

But he caught me by surprise.

Both of them were pretty cool kids. Their parents paid me to watch the kids before and after school starting when Matt was in Kindergarten, and then during summers, too. Took them to swimming lessons and we did field trips when they had a day off from school. It was like having four kids there for a couple years.

They moved across town when Matt was a 3rd grader, so I didn't have them anymore, but we all remained in touch. We still are, actually. Vincent and his wife have two kids of their own now. Steve is up in Washington, he and his partner don't have any children. Their dad passed away about 15 years ago. I have lunch with Mom on occasion.

Vincent was one of those kids who would say absolutely anything. No filter at all. Quite often the things he said were unintentionally hilarious.

One day while we were driving to swimming lessons, he said from the back seat, "Did you know I'm a veterinarian?"

I said that I didn't know that. That I thought a person had to be a little older for that. He said, "No. Anyone can be a veterinarian. You know. A veterinarian. I don't eat meat."

I didn't laugh. I may have smiled.

I said, "Vincent, I think you mean vegetarian."

"Oh yeah!" he exclaimed. "I always get those mixed up."

(He wasn't a vegetarian, either. Just thought it was a good idea to pretend he was. Haha.)

We were on our way somewhere a few weeks later, and he said, "Hey Susan. Did you know I'm a homosexual?"

I gave it a moment's thought. He saw my hesitation and said cheerfully, "Oh, it's okay. You're one, too!"

Oh.
Then I got it.

"Uh, Buddy? I think you mean homo sapiens."

"Oh yeah!" he exclaimed. "I always get those mixed up."

But my favorite thing he said was one I didn't witness. I just got to hear about it later.

They moved to a house across town. One Saturday morning, Earl was outside watering the flowers. A man walked up and introduced himself as a neighbor. They shook hands and started chatting. Earl said it was about three minutes before the guy unbuckled his belt, pulled down his pants and asked if Earl would mind 'looking at this thing on my leg'.

Earl was quite taken aback. Wouldn't you be?

He said he held up a hand and said, "WHOA!! Why are you showing me this???"

The neighbor said, "Well, because you're a doctor."

Earl said, "Um, no. I'm a plumber."

The guy blushed and pulled his pants up quickly.
"Oh," he said. "Your kid told me you were a doctor."

Haha... a different kind of plumber.

Party Time

Last month I got an invitation to Jennifer's graduation party.

We've been in touch over the years, so it wasn't a complete surprise to receive it. I accepted the invite, figured out a way to creatively wrap some cash and got her a card.

I went to a local park and met the extended family today.

Jennifer (not her real name) has grown into an amazing young woman. She's confident and intelligent. Happy. I met her boyfriend. Good looking kid. They seem to be having fun together.

Met her grandparents, assorted aunts and uncles and cousins.
Her family has always adored her. She has a wonderful support system.

No surprises there.

What *was* surprising were the family members who introduced themselves to me and said they'd heard a lot about me.

Considering I stopped working for the evil empire in 2016, I was surprised I had such a reputation in the extended family of a child I worked with so long ago. Can't deny that it made me feel good, though. Like I really do make a difference.

I mean, I know I do. But to have it shown to me in that way is new.

I didn't spend a lot of time talking to a bunch of people I don't know, it's really out of my comfort zone, but I did have some conversations with several about our Jennifer.

I printed out 50 pages (yes, really) from my blog about her for her mom. Had this photo printed from Snapfish to add to it. I could have printed 50 more, I think.

I hope she enjoys reading it. Jennifer gave me great blog fodder for quite a few years.
Told her today not to forget me when she's rich and famous.

She's going off to college (has already taken a few courses) and is going to do something psychology based. She'll be good at it.

So that's what I was up to today.
What are you doing?

Pennaless.

I know that's not how you spell it.

But Dad said it that way often after my maternal grandfather passed away.

My grandfather and my Dad never liked each other. 

"He died pennaless, " Dad said with great relish. As often as possible.

It wasn't actually true, either. I'll get to that in a bit.

This is an  excerpt from a post about 9 years ago.

"His current do-my-best-to-piss-off-everyone-in-a-5-mile-radius schtick is Alzheimer's. He says something or is reminded of something by someone and pretends he has no idea what they're talking about. "Heh heh heh, that's the Alzheimer's kicking in. Heh Heh heh."

It's particularly cruel to my mother, who doesn't find dementia in elderly people the least bit humorous. Her mother, my grandmother, was confined in a care home for more than 16 years with dementia. Little bits of her kept slipping away until all that was left was an incredibly healthy exterior. It was awful, but my dad, who's been jealous of my grandparents one day and gloating about how 'they died pennaless*' the next thinks joking about dementia is the height of wit.

Yeah, wasn't funny then.

Isn't actually funny now, either, although there's a part of me that sees some karma. He thought it was so funny to say that shit to my mom, even though she asked him several times to stop. He thought it was hilarious to keep saying it over and over and over and over until everyone TOLD him to stop. Then he acted like we were being unreasonable and 'trying to control' him. Persecuting him, to be exact.

Yeah, asshole, your wife is in tears because you're laughing at the horrible thing that happened to her mother and you're the one being picked on.

So here's how finances went in our family.

Every month, my parents had a huge fight over where all the money went.

It went on late into the night. He threw a tantrum like a little kid. He stomped around. He slammed doors. He got this high pitched tone to his voice. And the more placating my mom did, the more angry he got. As if it was her fault we were broke every damn month.

There was never any extra.
Other teacher families had a nice car, a house and nice clothes.
Not our family, though

Why? Because every month, Dad took a huge percentage of his paycheck and deposited for his retirement. He took the maximum amount out, but he also had other savings he was contributing to. I don't think it's wrong to save for retirement if you can, but when your family is barely scraping by because of it, you're selfish.

He called US selfish, though. If we had the nerve to ask for anything 'extra'. Like a pair of gloves for winter. We wore socks on our hands. Sometimes we didn't get a winter coat until December even though we couldn't wear the one from the year before. He got mad at Mom if she tried to suggest new shoes or a coat.

"What's wrong with the one we bought last year?"

Mom would tell him we'd outgrown them. He made us go get our coats and try them on in front of him and prove they didn't fit.

I remember one occasion where my wrists and part of my forearm were sticking out from the sleeve and the coat stopped about waist-length and he said, "What's wrong with this coat? It looks fine to me!"

He had charge accounts all over the place, too. So every month those bills had to be paid. I know from experience how hard that is. People look at credit all wrong. "I can afford 50 bucks a month" and then the interest starts adding up and you can't pay your bills and you  have to charge more to keep getting by.

We were short every month. After groceries, rent, (my parents didn't own a home until 1979 and they actually didn't own that one, either...) charge account payments and not much else, there wasn't anything left.  Let's not forget the Sunday Jesus show, either. My parents made a big production of dropping a check into the offering plate every week.

We might have to drink powdered milk and wear socks with holes in them, but they were good Sunday Christians, by god.

Mom worked, too. She worked a lot harder than he did, for awhile drove a school bus, then worked as a police dispatcher, but also ran the house. Did all the laundry and the cleaning and cooking and grocery shopping and made sure we got to school and did our homework and all the things.

And every month, after their money big fight and my dad had left for work, my crying mother would call her parents and ask to 'borrow' money. She knew, and they knew, that it wasn't a loan.
They never said no, though.
They just sent a check.

When Jim needed braces, my grandparents paid for them.
When Steve needed braces, my grandparents paid for them.
When I needed braces, my dad decided I 'looked fine' and I didn't get them.
My lower teeth are crammed in and crooked and I had one hell of a time with the wisdom teeth... but whatever. He didn't care.

Every month, my grandparents sent my mom a check. Sometimes more than once a month.
Birthdays?  My grandparents sent a check to Mom for us until we got a little older, then the checks were sent to us directly.

Christmas, my mom told our grandparents what we would like and they bought it and sent it to us. The year of the arm-sticking-out coat, my grandparents bought me a nice coat for Christmas.

They sent checks. Other relatives did, too. My great grandfather sent my dad a check to go to college when I was in 3rd grade, too. He paid for all of it. Tuition, books, miscellaneous expenses.

My parents had a charge account at Hub City Foods in La Grande, Oregon. (A charge account at a grocery store???! Hey, it was a long time ago). Dad graduated and we moved, but they were paying off that grocery bill from 1971 to 1978. So that was another monthly 'hit'.

But nothing was more important to my dad than his retirement. We sure heard about it often enough.

Sometimes my parents went 'on a diet'. They'd stock up on special food for themselves and not allow us to have it. They went through weird food phases. Instant breakfast, milk and a banana for breakfast, all blended up. Not powdered milk which is what we were drinking, though. Nope, only the best for them. We were told, "NO! That food is for my DIET!" so many times over the years. There weren't enough bananas for us to have them, though. Only enough to last through the week for their blended morning drink.

They had weird phases. Ate only white food for awhile. Then only green food.

They bought AYDS candies and had those with black coffee to start their day.
(Here, eat this sugar. It will suppress your appetite. Really! Would we lie to you?)

The wheat germ and yogurt diet was cheap enough that we were allowed to have some yogurt now and then.

Granola made an appearance in the diet rotation, too.

A big jar of soy nuts for when they wanted something to munch.

Did they offer the green vegetables to us? No. They'd make a pressure cooker full of them for their own dinner and we got a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese or a can of Campbell's soup. To split between three kids.

They did weird food shit for years, too.
It was always something weird and faddish.

It wasn't important to Dad to make sure we had more than a couple things to wear, either.
This is copied from a post from 2011.

As a young teen, I had very little to wear. At a time in life where it was super important to me to fit in, to be like other people... I had two shirts and two pairs of jeans. Three pairs of underwear. Two bras.

There were some colossal arguments with my dad about clothing. This one is relatively mild.

My mom ordered me two dresses from the Sears sale catalog. Without consulting me. Without even mentioning it. The dresses arrived one day while I was at school, and I found them waiting for me on my bed when I came home.

WTF?? I didn't even WEAR dresses! Hadn't in years!

Please believe me when I say I would rather have gone to school with missing teeth, part of my ass hanging out, greasy hair... ANYTHING but wearing one of those ass-ugly plaid dresses. One was a peachy colored tiny plaid with little turquoise stripes and god-awful ruffles down the front. I was 15 years old for fuck's sake! The other one was brown plaid, in the same exact style. Both were too long, made from thin material that you could see through, and I was appalled when I saw them. Hung them in my closet with great shame.

And when school was about ready to start up in the fall, and I had NO new clothing... (usually never did... went to school in the same stuff all the time) and precious little old clothing, my mom said something to my dad about it. And he stomped angrily into my room and went through my closet. Took about 40 seconds. I really had nothing. And then he hit the fucking roof over those dresses. I was 'an ungrateful and selfish bitch' because I had not worn 'those perfectly good brand new dresses', and he'd 'be goddamned if he was going to waste more money on clothes.'

Those dresses had been on sale for $2.50.

The other kids made fun of me. Girls (and more than a few boys) laughed at me and suggested I was dirty because I wore the same clothes all the time. I overheard a conversation once between a couple boys who were horrified at the idea of asking me out. "She's gross. She wears the same clothes all the time. I'll bet she never takes a bath."

So I have some issues about clothes. Ha, it's surprising my issues with clothing aren't much, much bigger.

So I left home on the advice of a guy at the mental health center. He was absolutely right. I'm glad I did it. It was very hard, though.

I moved in with my grandparents, they put me to work in their greenhouse/flower shop and for the first time in my entire life, I was earning money.

Due to the complete lack of pretty much everything I needed, forget what I wanted, I was GIDDY with the possibilities of the huge amount of money I was making.

I made 2 dollars an hour working part time.

So what happened?

In response to one of my commenters and two people who emailed, I'm posting most of the email that went to the son of the counselor I saw. It contains a bit of my story.

In retrospect (isn't it amazing how clearly we can view what we should have said/done when it's in the past?) there were so many things that happened and so many times I said nothing.

It's a conditioned response.
Safer to say nothing and lie low. Tiptoe around and try not to be noticed.
Don't piss him off.
But the real problem wasn't that I was pissing him off, the problem was that I was existing in a different form than the easily controlled little girl. Puberty changed the whole dynamic.

He didn't appreciate that.

My own torment would have ended sooner if I had not been afraid to speak up about the things happening at home.

But I had two little brothers. And while I wasn't putting them first in my thinking because they didn't seem to be targeted the same way I was, I didn't completely leave them out of my thoughts, either. 

Like this: He'd get pissed at me and rant and scream and shove. Slam doors. Tantrums, really. Like a six year old. Him saying that he 'didn't like me' anymore was the equivalent of the first grade comment that's guaranteed to hurt feelings and show them just who's boss... "You're not my friend anymore!"

And if the tantrum didn't run him all the way down, there was plenty of vitriol and anger left for my brothers. And for Mom when she came home exhausted from her 2nd shift job. She was ready to go to bed and go to sleep, he wanted to argue and slam doors and stomp around.
He was angry all the time and looking for an excuse to explode.

So here's some of the email I sent to the adult son of my now-deceased counselor.

J. found your contact information for me.

Don't know how she did it, but I'm happy that she has done so. I wouldn't have been able to.

It feels right to tell you what a difference your father made in my life. I truly believe he saved me when I was a teenager.

I grew up with a father (public school teacher) who had some kind of personality disorder. I'm not qualified to diagnose, but I would guess some kind of BPD or Narcissism.

He was paranoid and angry as long as I knew him, but not overtly mean to me until I had the nerve to go through puberty and become a woman instead of staying a little girl.

Diagnosis doesn't matter, it's especially pointless now as he died this past Thanksgiving.

There was a lot of verbal and emotional abuse over the years between my 12th and 16th birthdays.

It ramped up after my dad lost his father and twin brother within three years of each other.

Mom was no help, she was an enabler. There was absolutely no mama bear in her. I can't recall a single instance of her standing up for me. Not one. Raised to be quiet, don't draw attention to herself, make no waves. She was the daughter of a small town business owner and spent her entire life trying to make sure she never upset or inconvenienced anyone.

She went from being under her father's thumb to being under my father's boot. They were married at 19 and 20.

There was some physical abuse in our home as well. I had an adult friend who was a mandatory reporter, and he passed along the information to CPS after a particularly awful incident.

I don't know how it works today (funnily enough *I* am a mandatory reporter now) but back then, someone from the CPS offices came to school and pulled me out of class to talk.

She asked me what had happened, and I, being both brutally honest and blunt as well as pissed off and tired of dealing with it, told her exactly what had occurred.

I went back to class, not knowing what I'd started.

That evening was not the calmest evening I've ever had.

Dad asked me and my brother if we'd talked to anyone at school today. I said I had.

"And what did you tell her?"

"The truth."

Then he turned to my little brother and asked him the same question.
My brother said, "I didn't tell them nothin'."

"You're a good son," Dad told him.
And gave him a twenty dollar bill.

I was treated to a screaming, ranting, foaming at the mouth lecture about how family protects family and told how he would have taken a bullet before ever saying a thing against HIS father.

This backstory is relevant because CPS told my dad that we needed to get family counseling if he wanted them to drop the case.

Which is where your dad comes in.

We all trooped down to his office one evening, and had our first session.

After we were all situated, B asked us why we were there. My dad said, "There's something wrong with my family. They're persecuting me. I've done nothing wrong, yet they're treating me like Hagar the Horrible. I hope you can help them."

I don't have total recall, but I remember every one of those words. I remember every little nuance, the musty smell of the building, the color of the carpet and the ugly wood paneling on the walls.

We had three sessions. They were not really productive as far as I could tell, although Dad did stop smacking me, so I guess that was a win.

He was still mean, though.
As the three counseling sessions faded into the distance, he got more and more angry and awful.

If it weren't for my best friend, I wouldn't have had a safe space.
Home was not safe. School wasn't, either.
Wherever Hollie was, I was safe.

Then, her whole family moved away over summer.

I was so emotionally fragile and my person was just... gone overnight.

I was 16.
No more safe.

I didn't have other friends.
I didn't trust anyone with my story.
My heart.

Things weren't okay at home.
I was devastated by the loss of my only friend.
High school is hard. Very hard in a little town, the cliques and all the rest of the stuff that goes on.

And because I didn't trust people, I didn't have friends to rely on.

Oh sure, I had acquaintances, but not having my friend anymore had just kicked the legs out from under me.

One morning in late October, I just.. couldn't anymore. 
Couldn't think.
Couldn't see a way out of everything.
I couldn't get ready for school.
Couldn't, well, anything.
Couldn't.

I was unable to function. In retrospect, I realize it was a breakdown. I couldn't stop crying.

My mother came in to make sure I was getting ready for school, observed me lying in a puddle of tears on the floor in my bedroom and rather sarcastically said, "Well! I guess you should just go see a counselor since you're so upset!"

She was shocked when I agreed.

She made a phone call that morning.
Guess where she took me.
Go on, guess.

You're right. I went to see your dad.

Only this time, it was just me going there.

So here's where that backstory comes in. B had met my dad. More than once. And although Dad tried to hide his dark side from the world, your dad had seen a bit of it. And he knew what the CPS report had said, too.

So I saw B every week for about six weeks.

And one day while we were talking, he said, "Listen. There is nothing wrong with you. You're fine. You're smart, you're capable, and you're not a bad person. Your entire problem is your dad and what you need is to get away from him. Do you have a place you could go?"

That was early December. We brainstormed a few ideas (your dad was not on board with the idea of me moving in with my boyfriend) and I ended up contacting my maternal grandparents to ask if I could come to them.

They were agreeable.

All that remained was to tell my family.

He helped me with that, too.
We talked about what I should say.
How I should phrase it.
He gave me the courage to go to my dad and say the words.

It was an ultimatum.

"Look Dad. I won't live with you anymore. Here are the choices. I can move out and move in with my boyfriend. I can run away, be declared missing, go to court and ask to go into foster care. Or I can go to the grandparents in Colorado. You can pick. But I won't stay here anymore."

And by mid-January 1978, I was on a plane to Colorado.

Since this is my story, I will hit the fast forward here.

I met my future husband on my 18th birthday. Before I was 20, we were married. He was damaged, too. Alcoholic mom, enabling dad.

A much, much harder lifestory than mine. Yet a strong, decent person. Full of integrity and heart. He's been my best friend for 43 years now.
We had two kids, both are adults with happy lives and wonderful partners.
He's an amazing father and husband.

I believe with all my heart that those good things in my life would not be mine now if your dad hadn't helped me.

I regret that I never told him that he'd made such a difference.
My life journey would have gone in a different direction, I think.

I've found support in a lot of places. I think I'm mostly okay, which is more than a lot of people can hope for.

I've been floundering a bit because Dad's death brought up all the crazy stuff that happened to me growing up. I've been processing it. Dredging up all that old stuff has been instructive and cathartic and confusing and aggravating and all the emotions.

~~~~~~~~~
It was surprisingly hard to get through all that stuff.
Even though it really was a lifetime ago.
There are parts of it that still make me cry, and I don't do that often.


His response was very kind and affirming. He told me that his dad would have loved to know that he'd made a difference in my life and thanked me for sharing my story.

He shared some stuff from his life and his appreciation for growing up with the parents he had.

He also enclosed a newspaper clipping with a photo of his dad and him as a six year old. Little guy was sitting in one of the chairs in the same office that was so familiar to me back then.
Took me back immediately.

So I find that writing things down is helpful for me. I wish I had been a writer when I was a teen, having it all laid out would probably have been a help to me. I have written some down in the past few years. I know I wasn't crazy and I wasn't wrong, but having it in black and white is affirming. I may even dump some more here on the blog.