Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

The Impertinent Daughter is graduating from Texas State tomorrow. She's graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art, and she's graduating summa cum laude. And that's with taking not just studio classes, she took hard academic classes as well. English Lit, geology, political science, algebra.... and she kept her grades up, despite having to keep the family going after her papa started treatment for anal and liver cancer, and her mother nearly dying of pneumonia.

She's a wonder, y'all, and I am so proud of her.

And I wish like anything that the Husbandly One could be here to see her graduate. That was his goal on entering hospice. He knew he was dying, but he wanted to live long enough to see his daughter graduate from college. He tried so hard to live.

I hate that my husband's last rational words to me were, "I can't breathe!" I hate that being in hospice and having a DNR meant I couldn't call 911, and that I was alone with him when this happened. And that the closest hospice nurse to us was an almost two hour drive away from us.

It's been thirty three days since the Husbandly One died. Thirty three days since I lost the person I tell everything to first. Thirty three days of waking up without him in the bed with me, and having to remember all over again that he's gone.

There are times when it's so hard, I almost can't breathe. When the Impertinent One had gone on to the Texas State website to make sure they printed her name correctly, and discovered that she was graduating summa cum laude, she screamed, I screamed, we squeed and wibbled, and I told her how proud of her I am. Then I turned to say something to THO... and remembered. Oh... that's right. He's gone.

I miss him so very, very much.

Last year at this time, I was stumbling around in a numb haze, struggling to hold on to some semblance of competence and trying not to cry at the drop of a hat. I was trying to be strong for my kids, and trying to figure out how to talk my stubborn dying husband into getting treatment, and that giving the ACA marketplace another chance would be worthit. My entire world had literally crumbled around me, and I was facing the reality of losing my husband and facing the rest of my life without him. And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing.

It was horrible.

He had resigned himself to die, because he didn't want to impoverish his wife and children seeking treatment that might not work. Because we didn't have insurance. And worse, we found that the Central Texas county we live in had no resources for uninsured patients to get cancer treatment. A neighboring county, Travis, did, but we could potentially wait six months to a year before even seeing a doctor. And by that time... the Husbandly One would be dead.

It took a screaming fight to get him to see reason. To get him to see my gastroenterologist, get a colonoscopy that found the rectal tumor that was causing him so much pain. The gastro recommended an oncologist, who at first refused to see us because... we were uninsured. But... we could pay.

We ended up having to physically go to the office of the oncologist and talk to the staff there, face to face. To show that we were real people, that THO was determined to fight for his life. That we could afford to pay for this, and were willing to get insurance, but we needed to know which ones they took because we weren't going to take any risks with this. We'd had enough of not having the right insurance for the doctors we needed to see, or coverage for needed treatments. We needed information and recommendations... and they gave it to us.

We signed up for an ACA gold plan that night. Best move we ever made. They have covered everything as far as THO was concerned.

It's been terrifying. And hard. Gods, it's been hard. He's been in pain, in agony at times. Colorectal cancer is... it's not just the pain. It's what it takes away from you. Your dignity. Your self worth. All the shaming your parents did when they were toilet training you? It comes back. Every horrible, silly, ridiculous, mean, or otherwise thoughtless thing they ever said, don't you want to be a big boy? Big boys don't make messes in their pants or beds! Big boys don't stink! Big boys don't poop in the tub, on the carpet, big boys control themselves and wait until they're on the potty... that's just something parents say to encourage their kids while potty training, right?

Okay, take that to being an adult and having no control over your sphincter, because you've got a tumor there that's messing up the signals to your brain that tell you it's time to pinch the big loaf. Except you can't. And it hurts. Like someone's shoving a red-hot roofing nail into your ass. And when it finally lets go, you can't stop it.

He was... humiliated sometimes. He hated wearing adult diapers. He hated having me clean him up, or change the bed, or having to clean the carpet because he just couldn't get to the bathroom in time. But I did it, because he's my husband, he couldn't help it, I love him and... he'd have done the exact same thing for me.

He couldn't eat, either. He was massively anemic, and dropped down to 106 pounds from a maximum of 165 just a mere six months before. In January, I ended up rushing him to the emergency room in Kyle, after having to listen to him scream in pain while sitting in a bathtub. I thought he'd ruptured something, or had gone septic. Instead, I found he was merely being an over-achiever by having both an anal abscess and a fucking kidney stone all at the same time!

He was in the hospital for 3 days on that alone.

It was lucky he'd had an iron infusion just the week before, because they wouldn't have been able to do the surgery on his abscess otherwise.

When he got home, we had to wait for the drain to be removed from his abscess before he could start chemo. And we were trying Ensure to help him gain weight.

It wasn't working. You know what? Ensure is fucking disgusting. It smells horrible and tastes even worse. I gag just thinking about that stuff. We gave up on them and started him on Bolthouse Farms smoothies, and you know what? That saved him. I really think those smoothies saved his life, because he loved them and drank them all the time. He finally started putting on weight, and they didn't make him sick when he started chemo. It was awesome.

As he started improving, my anxiety eased, and I didn't feel so hopeless. I still, even now, have moments at night when I hold him and feel tears stinging my eyes, because.... I'm still terrified of losing him. Before this, I intellectually knew that one day, one of us would die and the other would be left behind, but it was far away in some nebulous future. Both of us have parents who lived into their eighties, there was no reason to think we'd not be the same way.

But then this happened. And suddenly, that nebulous future is a lot closer. There's an expiration date that is a lot closer than I'm comfortable with, and while the treatment has worked, and the Husbandly One now has more time... I'm very much aware it's not as long as I'd once assumed.

I am grateful we have more time. And I will take every single minute of it. He is the love of my life. My very favorite husband. And... I just don't know how I'll do it without him when that inevitable time comes.

But for now? He's better. He's almost back to his old self. He's almost 140 pounds. And he's beating it.

I'll take it.

So... the Impossible Son is now a freshman in high school.

*pause for motherly whimpering*

In our small town, the freshman campus is separate from the high school. It's also on the other side of town from where we live. Not a big deal, because this is a small town. I am lucky, though, that his first period class, athletics, is at the high school, and so is his last class of the day, because this means he can walk to school in the morning and walk home in the afternoon, since the high school is just down the street from us. Which means... no more sitting in long slow lines of cars to drop off/pick up my student, HUZZAH!!!!

*dance of joy, dance of joy*

Since Impossible is also on the high school cross country team, this also means that every other morning, he has to be at the high school at 6:30 a.m. for running practice. The Husbandly One drops him off on his way to work, and if I wait long enough, I can go out on the back deck and see the whole team go running by. They get back to the school in time for the team to shower and get ready for their first period class. Which, for my son, is athletics, as I mentioned earlier.

The next thing I need to mention is that my son, at 14, is the tallest person in our house. He is all long arms and legs, and the basketball coach pretty much started drooling the moment the Impossible Son loped into the gym. So... the Impossible Son spends first period playing basketball pretty much nonstop. All. Period. Long.

All freshman who have their first and last periods at the high school are required to ride a bus to go back and forth. This bus leaves at a very specific time, and if a student isn't there at that time... too bad, so sad. There is only ONE bus for this. I totally get that.

However, what this means for athletic students is... depending on the coach, there is NO TIME FOR A SHOWER.

This... is NOT a good thing.

So, Tuesday morning of the second week of school, I was sitting and staring at the story I'm presently working on and wondering if I needed to do little tweaking of my outline when the Dropkick Murphys start screaming, "I'm a sailor peg, and I lost my leg! Climbing up the topsails, I lost my leeeeegggg!!"

It's my phone, and I think, "I turned in the athletic forms, he has all his school supplies, omg, what has he done now?"

"Hey, Mom."

I frown at look at the clock, thinking, did he miss the bus?

"I need to come home and take a shower."

Blink. Blink.

"Wait a minute, didn't you take a shower after class?"

"There was no time," he said a little sheepishly. "I mean, I barely have time after practice to throw on my clothes! I have to get out to the bus as fast as I can, no time for a shower!"

Okay, I know that's true, it was true when my daughter was a freshman, and will probably be true until the construction at the high school is finished.

"Impossible, you'll just have to suffer through it," I begin, knowing the school won't just let him come home. Then I realize, the ringtone was the Dropkick Murphys, not the Legend of Zelda. He was calling from the school office, not his own phone.

"Mom, everyone in my class says I reek! I stink, Mom, even the teacher says so! I need a shower!" he insisted.

It doesn't normally take me this long to catch on. "Wait a minute, are you just calling me on your own, or did the teacher send you to the office to actually go home and take a shower?"

"Yes, Mom, my teacher insisted!"

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes."

I was sort of stunned, but, having been around the Impossible Son when he was sweaty, I could sort of see it. Thing is, he didn't have that much of a body odor problem, really. It was mostly his feet that would get us during soccer season, where we would beg him to keep his shoes on until we were out of the car. But that's soccer pong, and just means keeping his gear clean. So, I got in the car and drove over to the freshman campus to sign him out.

The freshman campus was built in 1923 and has all the problems you'd associate with a building that old. It's small (the current class of freshmen are practically bursting out of the seams), it smells, and it's hard to air condition. In fact, only the classrooms and offices are air conditioned, while the halls are NOT. It's like walking into a sauna when you enter the building, and you want to hold your breath until you get into the office, where it's nice and cool. At least for a few minutes. Air conditioning at the freshman campus really means not as hot as the hall way.

So, I wade through the sauna to the relative comfort of the office to sign my son out. He arrives and keeps a careful distance from me, and when we get outside, immediately moves downwind of me.

"It's bad, isn't it?" he asks, eying me as we walk to the car.

"Not really." I take a careful sniff, but I don't smell much because... he's downwind.

"Just wait," he says ominously.

Amused, I unlock the car, we get in, I pull the window shade off the dash, start the car and get the AC going... and immediately my eyes start watering, my gag reflex leaps up and punches me in the throat, and my nose and lungs start rebelling and trying to escape.

"Oh... my... God..." I gag, turning to stare at my son in horror. "Did you roll in something dead??"

He's grinning at me. "I know, right?" The Impossible Son's cheeks are red with embarrassment, but there's an odd sort of pride in his eyes, too. "It's awful, isn't it? I told you! You didn't believe me!"

Frantically opening all the windows in my car, including the sun roof, with the AC going full blast in the faint hope of getting the... the... STANK out of my car, eyes watering and leaning away from my child, all I can say is, "Holy crap... how the fuck did this happen??"

"Mom," the Impossible Son says as leans helpfully away from me, "we ran four miles this morning in cross country, and then I had to go straight to basketball practice! No time for a shower! And then we barely have time to dress before we have to catch the bus! We all reek!"

I think all my nose hair was gone by the time we got home. My eyes are watering just remembering this. It was horrible. Like... old cheddar cheese that's been sitting in a bowl of water in direct sunlight for three days, and moldy soccer socks in a hot car, with a little muddy dog and three weeks unchanged cat litter box. During a hundred degree summer. With... sweat.

*is still horrified*

I never thought I'd ever say that about one of my children, but omg, he reeked. It made soccer pong look... pleasant.

So, after he'd decontaminated and changed clothes, he told me the story.

He was in his second period biology class, and the teacher had broken them up into smaller groups to work on their assignment. First, the kids in his group had started moving away from him with, "God, Impossible, WTF?" and "Dude, did you even take a shower??" Then some of the groups that were close to them started complaining and became vocal about insisting he go home to take a shower. The teacher, noticing the increasingly vocal protests, called him over to find out what was going on. At this point, Mr. Impossible had had enough. "Miss Biology Teacher, I really need to go home and take a shower," he said apologetically.

She said humorously, "So you're a little sweaty, you're fine, stop messing around and get back to work."

"No, I really, really stink, that's why they're all complaining," he insisted.

At that moment, the AC came on, and the vent was apparently behind him and blew air directly toward her. He said she was opening her mouth to probably tell him to go back to his table when his personal cloud of stench was blown into her face.

She froze. Her eyes went wide and her nostrils flared. Her eyes bulged as she stared up at him with horror, then they reddened and started to water. Her nose looked like it was trying to pinch itself shut. Her hands gripped the desk so hard, her knuckles went white. And her mouth snapped shut.

He said, "I seriously started to worry about her, because it was like... she stopped breathing!"

Of course, she stopped breathing! She was trying not to smell him.

After a moment, she started frantically pointing at the door. "You," she said, scooting hastily away from him after thrusting a hall pass at him. "You! Home! Now! SHOWER!!!"

"Well," I said, leaning toward him, "you smell much better now."

"I should," he said as we got in the car to go back to the freshman campus. "I used almost half my body wash cleaning myself off! Do they make industrial strength body wash?"

"No, and before you ask, Axe Body spray is not shower in a can," I said firmly. "If you had used it you would not have smelled better. You would still have the Stench, it just would have been... the Stench WITH Axe Body spray. And that would have been much worse."

"How do you know?" he asked as we pulled up to the school and I parked.

"Because the pot smokers at my high school used to try to disguise the smell of what they'd been doing before school started with this mint breath spray called Binaca. And it never worked." I grinned at him. "They never understood why they kept getting caught, but you know, it was because instead of smelling like pot smokers, they now smelled like Fresh MINTY Pot Smokers™!"

He laughed. "I'll pass that on!"

"Good. Because we're all kind of tired of smelling sweaty teen pong with Axe Body spray!"

You know, I'm still working on getting the smell out of my car!

It's been a while since I could sit out on the back deck at night, thanks to the giant pterodactyl skeeters we've been having lately. No, seriously, those suckers hurt when they bite (no pun intended), and since I've been having allergic reactions to mosquito repellant lately, it was easier to just stay inside.

But tonight, there was a lovely breeze, and it was just cool enough to be pleasantly warm, instead of overbearingly hot, and there was no moon, so the sky was bright with stars. I went out barefoot and sat in one of the chairs, pushing another chair around so I could rest my feet on the seat cushion, and tilted my head back to look up at the sky.

When we first moved out to Central Texas, we lived way out in the middle of nowhere on a two lane highway between San Marcos and Bastrop. There were hardly any houses out there, just lots of cattle, coyotes, and Nubian sheep. And at night?

I had never seen the Milky Way, except when I was in a drum and bugle corps and we were stalled at night out in the middle of nowhere and I just happened to look up. But when we went outside the first night after moving to the 21 house, I remember frowning at the big giant smear splitting the sky in two and asking my husband, "What the heck is that? Incandescent smoke??"

The Husbandly One laughed at me and said, "That's the Milky Way."

I was floored. And I was hooked. I spent a lot of time outside at night after that!

It's one of the few things I regret about moving into town, though by the time we left the 21 house, the population in that area had grown to the point where it was getting hard to see the Milky Way at night. Still, when I sit on the back deck and look up at the night sky, though it's more full of stars than the sky I grew up with in Houston, still... something is missing.

There was this lovely breeze, though, and it was enough to lift my hair from my sweaty neck, and I listened to the night chirps of insects and frogs, the soft twitter of birds, and the occasional owl. There was distant laughter from a house down the block, the smell of hay from a far off field, and somewhere nearby, night-blooming flowers were opening just enough to lightly perfume the air. It was so calm and peaceful, and it made me remember why we bought this house.

The Husbandly One coiled solar LED fairy lights around the porch columns with the help of some friends earlier this summer, and they gave just enough light to see by without overwhelming the night sky. He came out to see what I was up to and sat down to chat, and I looked up just in time to see a meteor streak across the sky overhead.

Yeah, a lovely night to sit, listen, and just be...

So, last Friday night, this happened...



Yes, after twelve years of alphabets, numbers, packages and packages of lined paper and crayons, dodgy math education and questionable science, hoping that this year she gets a good teacher, hoping that the district keepsthe good teacher, crying when the district lost a good teacher, two bouts of mono, freezing in the stands and cheering for her while watching her play soccer, then holding her when the coach turned out to be a major asshole, endless teacher conferences and meetings with the principal to argue against stupidity in administration, doing the happy-happy-joy-joy dance with her teachers when something went right, many, many MANY bento lunches, and lots of hugs, love, and encouragement... the Impertinent Daughter has graduated from high school.

Even through the many obstacles that were thrown up at the end, like having to have a stupid orange paper signed by teachers that my daughter NEVER HAD and pay any fees that were owing OR SHE WOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO WALK ACROSS THE STAGE TO GET HER DIPLOMA, my daughter graduated.

And it was a wonderful, joyous ceremony, too! I have to share!

There was a brouhaha because of the threat of rain, and we weren't sure whether we'd be able to hold it at the high school stadium or not, but the weather remained clear. As parents, the Husbandly One and I were seated on the football field (the ceremony was held on the field, with everyone else sitting in the stands), and we got to watch our daughter file in with her classmates, that million megawatt smile in full evidence when she spotted us. The Tall Blonde told me later that past graduations were much more solemn and controlled than this one, but this one? Well, let's just say the Impertinent Daughter's influence on her classmates was most clearly seen in this ceremony.

And, I will also say it was because Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere has been the grade-level principal for this particular group of seniors since they were in sixth grade. Well, actually, she was placed on administrative leave for a year after 8th grade because of the howling protest all of us parents put up. Unfortunately, she turned up at the high school when they got there for 10th grade. So, when I say Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere had an influence on how this group handled their graduation, I don't mean it as a compliment.

Let me put it this way, when the valedictorian gave her speech, she directly contradicted what Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere said in her speech to the kids earlier, her "Your years in high school are the best years of your life," or some such nonsense. Valedictorian said, "Guys, don't make high school the best years of your life. Those are yet to come. If high school is the best time of your life, then your life is going to suck." Or something to that effect. But the best part of her speech was the end, when she said, "Okay, remember what we discussed? On the count of three, one... two... three..." and the seniors shouted, "DOBBY IS FREEEEEEE!!"

Oh, yeah. Awesome. And boy, didn't Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere looked puzzled?

The other funny thing? The beach balls. OMG, y'all, the moment that woman started speaking, the beach balls bounced up from everywhere among the seniors. And silly string!! Streamers!! CONFETTI CANNONS!!! It was EPIC!!



Adding insult to injury? In previous years, when administrators and security caught the balls, they'd pop them with knives and dispose of them. This year? THEY THREW THEM BACK TO THE KIDS AND EVEN JOINED IN ON THE FUN!!



I noticed all the kids were hugging Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere and thought that was weird, but I also noticed they were draping something around her neck. I found out later the hug was REQUIRED (by guess who?), but I was vastly entertained when I found out that what the kids were giving her and draping around her neck were their school ID's and lanyards.

If that isn't the biggest "fuck you, bitch!" I don't know what is!!

Oh, yes, the kids got their hits back in on Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere, and did it with humor, class, and the full participation of the rest of the staff! In fact, the entire ceremony pretty much fell apart when it was time for her to give the closing speech. No one knows what it was, because everyone was pretty much up and moving to take photos with their kids, or leaving the stadium.

If that doesn't give a clear impression of "No one in this district respects you," then I have little hope of anything getting the message across to her.

But I care not. Do you know why? Because my beautiful, wonderful, brilliant, talented, artistic, and just plain epically awesome daughter graduated from high school, and did it her way.



The first photograph is mine, but credit for the gifs go to krystiegoddess, who was much calmer than me and took more photos than I did. I fully expect to return the favor in a few years when it's her turn!

The Impertinent Daughter is a senior and will be graduating this year. That's twelve years worth of excuse notes that I've written for her alone (because I home-schooled her for kindergarten), and I am so done with this school district. Seriously.

In fact, you could say I've gotten rather jaded, and after last year's experiences of having to go toe-to-toe with administration just to get the Impossible Son moved to a class where he wasn't being bullied by his teacher, and then this year, well... I finally just... let go and gave them the full benefit of my biting sarcasm and dry wit when I had to write excuse notes. Or when I have to check the kids out of school.

Once, when I had to pull out the Impertinent Daughter to go with us to one of the Impossible Son's orthodontic appointments, I wrote in the check out slot, "orthodontic torture" for the reason. When she started her period and was cramping so badly she couldn't stand up straight, I wrote, "uterine vengeance and gore."

Why not?

So one morning, when I was sitting there, trying to cudgel my not really awake brain into composing yet another bland and professional excuse note, I just... gave in to my inner demons and wrote this:


"Please excuse the Impertinent Daughter's absences on Monday, February 3rd, and Tuesday, February 4th. We shall blame her grandfather for this one, because he was the one who decided to pass down the completely unnecessary and totally un-fun Migraine Gene. He could have passed down any gene but this one. Did he give her his green eyes? No. Did he give her the ability to imitate any bird call she hears? No. He gave her migraines.

We have both decided this is totally unfair and wish to complain to the management. Management seems to be ignoring us at the moment, and so, she’s had a migraine the last two days, and while she isn’t really over it, she’s attempting school today anyway."


I figured, what the hell? What are they going to do, yell at me? I'll just smile evilly and ask them what precisely is wrong with the excuse note? It gives the salient facts in an entertaining and light-hearted manner, and if they don't agree, too bad. Besides, I'm working on the supposition that these things are just as boring for them to read as they are for me to write. Why not entertain everyone? I figure it's a win all the way around. I get to practice my creative writing skills, and they get to spew coffee all over their office! WIN!!

Here's another one:


"Please excuse the Impertinent Daughter’s absences on Tuesday, February 11th, Wednesday, February12th, and Thursday, February 13th.

There was an epic battle with a virus that turned into a secondary sinus infection. Fortunately, the valiant Sir Zithromax came to her rescue, and destroyed the bacterium that tried to invade her sinuses. This enabled her trusty White Knights to defeat the despicable virus that had brought her down in the first place. Thus, she is able to return to school today. Do not be startled by the barking. It is not a werewolf. It is merely Miss Impertinent coughing."


Or this one:


"Please excuse the Impertinent Daughter’s absence from school on Friday, January 11th, and Monday, January 13th. We were having adventures with possible mono, which most fortunately, did not come to pass. The doctor did not want Miss Impertinent to return to school until the blood work came back, due to Miss Impertinent’s unfortunate habit of biting people and trying to turn them into werewolves. We’ve had the werewolf discussion with Miss Impertinent. I don’t think she’s listening. Still, the blood work came back and showed no mono, just an opportunistic virus that had nothing to do with werewolves, and everything to do with making her queasy and tired. She should be fine for most activities, but definitely not werewolf hunting."


This is one of my favorites:


"Please excuse the Impertinent Daughter’s absence on Wednesday, January 8th. There was nausea. There was cramping. There was fatigue. And even worse, there came the Dreaded Noises We Shall Not Speak Of. Because of this, I, in my role of “She Who Must Be Obeyed,” decreed that the Impertinent Daughter should stay home and not inflict herself, nor her possible projectile vomiting (which thankfully did not occur) on the innocent populace of the high school.

She is still pale, wobbly, and vaguely nauseous, but determined not to miss classes. Should she become horizontal and immovable, I shall arrive forthwith to whisk her away to the doctor."


On that last line, I ALMOST said, "I shall arrive forthwith to whisk her away to the voodoo practitioner of our choice, there to have beads rattled over her, and then to be suspended by one leg until the evil spirits be exorcised or fall out forthwith..." but I figured that would have been a bit much. Besides, l like to keep the excuse notes to one page, if possible. It's best I limit myself, you know?

Lest you think I left the Impossible Son out, here's the only excuse note I could find (I think two others are either on the iMac, which is unavailable right now, or simply lost):


"Please excuse the Impossible Son’s absences on Tuesday, March 4th, and Wednesday, March 5th. First he turned green. Then he got the bulging eyes. There may have been excessive salivation. Thankfully, there was no projectile vomiting, though there were prodigious amounts of mucus.

Did I mention tonsils the size of ping pong balls?

Thankfully, it wasn’t some strange tropical disease, though that might have been quite exciting. And the doctor tested him for strep and mono (which seems to be going around), both of which turned out to be negative. So he should be good to go. However, should he start sprouting excessive hair, well, it could be puberty, or he could be turning into a werewolf. Please refrain from the use of silver bullets until I can come pick him up."


Fortunately, the staff at both the junior high and the high school have been getting a big kick out of these excuse notes. I had the principal at the junior high run me down one morning to tell me how much she enjoyed reading a note I had written when the Impossible Son got his first migraine (ugh). It reminded her of her mother writing a similar excuse note for her when she was in high school, so she thought it was pretty hilarious. And the normally dour attendance clerk at the high school is cheerful and greets me by name when I call in now. So... WIN!!!

And just think, they have at least five more years of this, until the Impossible Son graduates!

*evil smirk*

So, tomorrow, I will be fifty.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about that. It is, after all, half of a century. And I have known the Husbandly One for half of my life, which seems really weird, because I feel like I've known him forever.

When I turned thirty, I barely noticed it. I was a little busy, so it just sort of... passed by. And when I turned forty, well... aside from some black balloons from a few friends, it wasn't that big of a deal, either. In fact, I found forty rather freeing. It was sort of the equivalent of being forced to stand up straight and at attention for 39 years, and then suddenly realizing it was okay, I could relax and take a nice, deep breath and have a bit of a rest now, thanks.

Not only that, but I was able to let go of a few things that had been weighing me down, realizing how utterly ridiculous they were, and boy, was it a relief! They were mostly things my mother had pre-programmed into me, and I was very happy to let them go.

Now, I'm looking at fifty and wondering where that's going to take me. I don't think I look fifty, though I'm not sure I know what fifty is supposed to look like, exactly. The Tall Blonde still insists on looking at my driver's license from time to time because she doesn't entirely believe me, and if she wasn't such a polite person, she'd probably demand to see my birth certificate as well. Still, I feel better than I have in a long time, and as a result, I'm more active than before. It's pretty awesome, so... I guess I'll call my fifties my "awesome decade."

Hey, whatever works!!

I've been sitting on this for a while, and kept meaning to post it, but life and stuff, you know? Gets in the way.

Anyhow, this came about because of a conversation the Impertinent Daughter and I had after one of the "turning the Wraith human" episodes on Stargate Atlantis. Because we wondered how much of their human characteristics would they retain, how much of the behavior they'd witnessed among the guards would they remember and try to imitate...

What would happen if two Wraith tried to... high five each other?



I don't know what I like most... the verbally challenged drone, or the "Oh, crap!" moment, followed by flailing.

Ahem... to quote an article on Yahoo News today..."In a major victory for gay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a provision of a federal law denying federal benefits to married gay couples and cleared the way for the resumption of same-sex marriage in California."

Thank you, Supreme Court. You screwed us over with denying us our right to remain silent as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, and you did it again by invalidating a key part of the Voting Rights Act. But... you did the right thing by granting equal marriage rights to everyone. And I totally appreciate that.

So... equal parts horror and joy, right?

And hey, Wendy Davis, YOU GO, GIRL!!! Thank you for donning those pink Nikes and standing up to the Good Ol' Boys for my rights! I am so damn tired of the Good Ol' Boys in Texas running things. Thank you for giving them a well deserved poke in the eye!

And now, you may return to your regularly scheduled lives...

Can I just... vent my spleen here? I mean, seriously, the people at the middle school... the stupid, oh, my gods, the stupid...

That steady thumping you hear? It's me, banging my head over and over again into the desk.

You know, seriously, I really thought it was Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere, but apparently, getting assigned to the middle school causes some sort of... brain damage. Or maybe Sees-Plots-Everywhere cursed the school, sort of like how Voldemort cursed the DADA position at Hogwarts. I dunno, but the last two weeks have been... horrible, and today was just the capper.

*head-desk*

Okay, so... last Monday... no wait, let me start over. It all started with a phone call. The Impossible Son had been playing a "game,", one of those stupid games 6th grade kids play that are so stupid and you think, "Surely my child is too smart to play that sort of stupid game," But, my son isn't immune from Stupidity, so... he took a pencil, turned it over and rubbed the eraser into his skin until... he literally rubbed a hole into his skin. Not only that... he did it three more times! All on the back of his hand!!

The principal of the school, who was the Impertinent Daughter's vice principal last year and thus knows me, called me to tell me that Mr. Impossible wasn't in trouble, but if it happened again, it would be an automatic suspension. Okay, fine. I can handle that. And the Husbandly One and I had the "any game that involve bodily injury, or harm, to yourself or others, is a game you are not going to play because it is stupid and people who encourage you to play these games are not your friends, they are stupid people you do not need to be around" talk with him. And that was that.

I thought.

I had been told to keep the eraser burns on his hand covered until they were healed, so I went and bought some vet wrap at the local feed store because, let me tell you something: Band-Aids aren't going to stay stuck to my kid's skin. His papa is the same way, I don't know if it's skin oils or what. The only band-aids that have any hope of staying on his skin more than ten minutes at a pop (and that's a generous estimate) are the waterproof kind made by 3M. So vet-wrap and gauze it was.

So, by the following Monday, I was almost out of vet wrap and didn't have enough to wrap between his thumb and forefinger to make sure the dang thing would stay put. Needless to say, it slid off by first period.

His first period teacher, a language arts teacher I will most generously call "Mrs. Picky" instead of what I want to call her (which is Mrs. Bitch), sent him to the nurse, who threw something together with band-aids and... get this... scotch tape. Yes, you read that right, scotch tape, the tape you use on wrapping paper when wrapping a present. Yes. That lasted... not at all. And when he got into band and started playing his trombone, it became painful, so he pulled it off. In the meantime, he had a friction burn from gym on his forearm so that had a band-aid, too, that Mrs. B... Picky put on his arm. That was stayed in place, until it fell off, unnoticed.

About this time, Mrs. Picky shows up to pull my son out of band class. Apparently, this is something she's been doing quite frequently, and no one has been informing me of this. Nor have I authorized her to pull Mr. Impossible out of classes. Period.

So, Mrs. Picky pulls him, notices the missing bandage and immediately decides to write him up and haul him to the office, where he is put in In School Suspension. Which basically means he's suspended and can't attend classes, but... within the school instead of sending him home. Talking to the 6th grade Assistant Principal (hereforth to be called the AP), it sounds like he was put in I.S.S. to separate him from Mrs. Picky.

Riiiiight.

So, the Impossible Son is very upset when I pick him up and informs me of what happened, and that he will be serving in I.S.S. the next day as well. When I asked why, it turned out he had participated in another Stupid Game, this one called Nut Check Thursday This game involves going up to other boys and striking them lightly in the crotch with a hand and saying, "NUT CHECK THURSDAY!!" Except it was Friday.

Shoot me now. My son has testosterone poisoning.

He was caught, and assigned I.S.S. for the following Tuesday. And that one, I will freely admit, was wholly deserved. Because stupidity fully deserves punishment, right?

Now, while he was in I.S.S., his teachers were supposed to send his work to the I.S.S. room so he didn't fall behind. And they mostly did... except Mrs. Picky. And she waited until FRIDAY to decide he hadn't done his work, and she pulled him from P.E. and sent him to the library... not to work on the written part of his assignment, but to color a picture.

Yes. This woman pulled my son from his physical education class to have him color a picture. I am not kidding. I wish I were. Really.

And the only reason I found out about this was because my son lost a baby tooth in the library, and was sent to the nurse, who called me immediately. Because he had a second loose tooth he was in danger of losing, and it was causing him a great deal of pain, so they wanted me to come pick him up.

It wasn't until after we got in the car that I found out what had happened, and... I pretty much hit my limit of patience with Mrs. Picky at that moment. She rides him constantly, calls me and tells me things like, "Maybe you should move Mr. Impossible to another class, because he has such a hard time staying awake in mine. He's always half asleep, he never has a pencil, and he's always forgetting his I.D." Then she turns right around and says, "I love having your son in my class because he's so smart, and he's always reading, and he's so funny, and I just love him!!"

Talk about mixed messages!!

Okay, so I looked at him and said, "You want me to transfer you out of her class while we're here?"

He looked massively relieved and said, "Oh, thank you, Mom!!"

We go in to see the counselor, and I smiled pleasantly and said, "I would like to have my son switched out of his first period language arts class and into another first period language arts class. There's a personality conflict with his current teacher and it just isn't getting better, so I think it would be best for everyone all around if he's removed from her class and put in another one."

The counselor smiled at me and said, "Well, Mrs. J., I will speak to the AP and see if we can do that. It's late in the year, and we may not be able to do it, but I'll do my best."

Yeah, that's pretty much when my patience went out the door. I kept my smile, but raised an eyebrow and said, "Let me rephrase that. I'm not asking you to switch him out of that class. I'm telling you to switch him out of that class. It's not a request. He will be pulled."

"Mrs. J., it may not be possible..."


"Oh, it will be possible," I said, keeping a firm rein on my temper. "Because you put him in I.S.S. to get him away from her, you put him in I.S.S. because he pulled off a band-aid that SHE had put on him, you have allowed her to pull him out of classes at least twice a week with what sounds like very little justification, because this is a class he happens to be doing very well in, and he spends more time in lunch detention because of her than he does actually eating his lunch. So, yes, this is going to get done. Because you and I both know there is much more than just a personality conflict going on here, and I have completely lost my patience with it. I am done, are you understanding me?"

She looked at me gravely for a moment and then said, "Yes, Mrs. J. I am understanding you. If you would please write a note with your request and the reason for it, emphasizing the...er... personality conflict, then sign it and date it, I will give it to the AP and tell her that this is urgent. His schedule should be changed by Monday."

"Thank you, Mrs. C," I said, and I accepted paper and pen, writing the note right there. I dated it, signed it, and then I looked at her and said, "And this will be done by Monday, won't it?"

"I'll do my best, Mrs. J." she said.

"No," I said. "This will be done by Monday."

"Yes, Mrs. J, it will be done by Monday," she said.

I took my son and left, and went home.

So... today came, and... I got a phone call this morning. From Mrs. Picky. She informed me that she was writing up the Impossible Son for a referral, because he didn't do his journal assignment in class, and didn't finish his worksheet by the end of class. "I wasn't in class today," she gushed over the phone, "I was supervising some testing, so there was a substitute in my class, and she told me that your son said he was on restrictions and couldn't write. So I went to find him during his band class and there he was, playing his trombone just fine, so I decided to write him up for a referral. Would you like to speak to him?"

Which made me realize he had been standing there listening to all of this. And that when I talked to him, she would be standing there, listening.

Yeah, I was at the school within the hour. I went to see the counselor, and she looked up at me and said, "Oh, Mrs. J! I'm so sorry, but I haven't had time to get to Mr. Impossible's schedule!"

I smiled grimly and said, "Okay, so, this is what I'm going to do. I'm pulling Mr. Impossible out of school today. When you get his schedule redone, you call me and let me know. Because he's not coming back to school until he's out of that class. He and Mrs. Picky have gone way past personality conflict and mutual antagonism and that class has become a hostile environment. I won't have it. So, you change his schedule. The only thing I ask is that you keep him with his math teacher, because he's actually doing pretty well in her class. Other than that, do what you want."

Her mouth fell open during this "But, Mrs. J, these things take time!"

"No. They don't," I said angrily, not bothering to try to control it any more, because I was just so done. "If you can't do this, then I won't be bringing him back. My husband and I will pull him from this school and put him in another district. And since it wouldn't be fair to put our son in a better school district and leave his sister here, we'll pull her, too, and put her in the same district with him."

She actually went kind of green with that one and said, "I'll work on it right now."

"Thank you," I said, and turned to sign my son out. And on the line where it said "reason to check student out," I wrote "Rescue Mission."

I took him to San Marcos, because I had an errand at the library, and within the hour, my phone rang. It was the counselor. "I gave the information to the AP, and she approved it. Mr. Impossible will have his new schedule in the morning."

"Thank you," I said and let the Impossible Son know.

And you know, I am SO TIRED of having to spend so much time in front offices, trying to get this district to do right by my kids. It's ridiculous. It's so unnecessary. It's like clearing one hurdle only to find out there's another one to jump, and it's so frustrating. If we could move tomorrow and find a better school district, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But we can't. So we try to make the best of it that we can and hope that what we do to supplement our kids' education is enough.

Tomorrow, I will most likely be bearding the principal in her den to see if we can (1) get that damn referral shredded, and (2) find out just how many times that woman pulled my son out of classes. Because that? No. Just no. Because it seems like that was more harassment than for actual education purposes. And I am definitely not putting up with that!