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

Okay, so... today was the usual trip the library so the kids could go to Animanga Club, and I could write. After I threw the Impossible Son in the shower (this is becoming a regular occurence, it seems, as the Boy Who Lived For Any Excuse To Get Wet has developed an aversion to showers), I went to get my stuff together. It was going along swimmingly, even tossing the Impossible Son back in because he "forgot" to wash his hair (HA!! A likely story!), until I was checking to make sure all three USB flash drives were in their pocket.

There were only two. And the one with the story I've been working on most lately was... gone.

I dumped everything out of the laptop bag and searched it. Nope.

I dumped out my purse, every pocket. Nope.

Okay, I thought. I took it out to work on the story a bit, so I must have left it on my desk. So, I looked.

Nope.

Trying not to hyperventilate at this point, I rushed out into the kitchen to start checking drawers, etc, and the Impertinent One asked me what was wrong. I told her and she helpfully lifted stuff to look under, checked the floor, and made good suggestions of where to look, considering that she knows how my mind works better than I do sometimes. Which is a scary, scary thing, my friends.

Anyhow, no dice here. I had a vague hope it might have fallen out in the car, but really, what I was leaning toward was the horrifying thought that... I might have dropped it... at the library.

*weeps*

We left for the library, and I held out hope that some excessively responsible person might have turned it in at the desk. Heh. What I really wanted to do was wail, weep, and, you know, be generally over-dramatic. I think I'm allowed, considering I was in a grumpy, cranky mood most of the weekend thanks to sleep deprivation brought on by the Impossible Son's inability to sleep when freaked out.

Don't EVEN get me started on that one.

Anyhow, we got to the library, and after the kids took off for Animanga Club, I went to the desk and asked if anyone had turned in a flash drive.

Someone had!

And it looked almost, but not quite, like mine. However, the librarians seem to all know now that I'm a writer and I'm working on something, so... she told me to take it anyway and see if my files were on it.

Fine. So I did, hoping I wasn't going to find some high school (or college) student's illicit porn stash.

Seriously, have you seen the porn high school and college age kids look at? It's sad. Really, really sad. They have no clue, really. They just don't. I don't want to look at their sad, sad porn stash, especially the version of porn that would be found in this extremely Baptist area.

*sigh*

So, anyway, I set my crappy laptop up and noticed schmutz all over the keyboard because somebody (looks accusingly at Impossible Son) was eating crackers (I'm generously hoping it was crackers) while watching Skyrim videos on YouTube. So, I opened this inside pocket that I keep a microfiber cloth, and nothing else, in. It's black, and when I shook it out... guess what fell out of it?

Yes! It was my flash drive!!

Y'all have no idea how hard it was to not do a whooping Happy Dance right there in the middle of the library!! Imminent Mental Breakdown AVERTED!!! YAY!!!!

It was awesome, and I was a very happy woman, and I'm sure the Husbandly One was very happy, too, as this means no copiously weeping Auntie who needs to be plied with copious amounts of chocolate heretofore unheard of, amounts that would put an entire platoon of female Marines in a coma for at least six months.

That's a lot of chocolate.

I have a lot of admiration for Marines, by the way. Just sayin'.

Anyhow, after I finish this post, I'm going to back up my novel... er... I mean... story on the desktop, and on the other extra drive. Just in case. Because, you know, stuff happens.

*sigh*

So, I have this Sony Vaio laptop that we bought prior to our trip to Washington D.C. a few years ago. It's been through a lot with us, being hauled through airports, in hotels, being accidently squished at the bottom of stuff we packed in the back of the car, bumped by kids and cats, hauled to libraries and cafes, soccer board meetings in questionable places, and so on. In other words, it's had its share of getting knocked around.

So, when it started getting inexplicably slow, after cleaning caches, registry, defragging, scanning it for viruses and malware, all to no effect, I figured it was aging, maybe needed a few upgrades, maybe I needed to get rid of some excess software, but mostly, it's getting old.

When it started freezing, sometimes shutting down completely, or refusing to load a page no matter how many times I clicked "refresh," I figured it was getting cranky, too. Or maybe it was possessed. Or maybe it had a virus/worm/trojan that our antiviral software couldn't handle. This wouldn't be a surprise because no one's antiviral programs can possibly handle everything that comes out of evil little hacker minds the moment it comes out, right?

I was getting ready to reprogram the damn thing with an axe... and then I read keiramarcos rant about Mozilla's Firefox 4, and when I read through the comments, suddenly realized what the problem was.

I had upgraded to Firefox 4, and while I liked some of the new features, mostly I just wondered why they had added all the new bells and whistles, because it didn't really seem to improve things much. It just added more stuff. It was nice and shiny, just kind of top-heavy and cumbersome. I got the earlier version mainly because I wanted to watch movies on Netflix on the laptop, and for some reason, Silverlight won't work with Safari for PC (works just fine for Safari for Mac, so???), and when the upgrade popped up, I had no problem with giving it a shot.

And that's when all the problems started, though it took a week to manifest, which is probably why I didn't make the connection. So... I went to Mozilla's website on the desktop to look and see if they had any fixes, and they suggested deleting add-ons. That would be great, if it didn't take forever to get the damn browser to even load. Fifteen minutes, I shit you not. Fifteen minutes!!! That's when I finally said, "Screw this!" and uninstalled the whole friggin' thing.

Amazing how fast my laptop was after I did that!!

I still ran the cache cleaners, rebooted, and defragged the hell out of it. Then I reloaded Firefox 3.6, and it's running beautifully with no problems whatsoever. It's like having a new laptop, I swear!!

If any of y'all are having the same problems and need to reload Firefox 3.6, you can get it HERE.

And thank you, Keira, for posting about it in the first place. You saved a laptop from an untimely death!

Soooooo... I had a conference today with the Impossible Son's main teacher, Mrs. G., and his math teacher, Ms. H.

Yes, they're still alive and the hair has not been singed off their heads.

*sigh*

I'll admit, I was in a rather feisty mood and loaded for bear. However, I haven't had a chance to speak to Mrs. G. beyond some emails, which is rather unusual, because I try to get to know my kids' teachers, if only to figure out how much "home-schooling" I'll be doing and in what subjects!

The first thing I learned when I arrived was that Mrs. G. expected me to be a no-show. I blinked then said, "I always call and email when I can't make a meeting, Mrs. G."

"Well, as a matter of fact, you do," she said, and looked rather taken aback. "Most of the parents I meet with, when I meet with them, don't."

I just nodded, and we sat down with Ms. H. to start talking about Mr. Impossible's math problems, and a few other issues.

We cleared up a few things. Like the reason Mr. Impossible doesn't like showing his work. It's not that he doesn't want to, it's that he doesn't see the necessity for it, since he's already done it in his head. "Why should I have to do it twice?" he asked me grumpily.

"Because the teacher needs to see your thought process, especially when you get it wrong because you rushed through it," I said crankily.

This also allowed me to tell Ms. H. that the reason he sometimes rushes through a test, or classwork and turns it in with either all the wrong answers or no answers at all is because he's frustrated, he wants to get it over with as soon as possible, and gives it to her in the mistaken belief that this will make her happy and she'll leave him alone. In other words... he's frustrated.

I'm very familiar with this tactic. My dad used it all the friggin' time! However, unlike my dad's family, I don't let the Impossible Son get away with it.

Neither will Ms. H., now that she knows.

We cleared up a few problems with Mrs. G. as well, and addressed... the Bully Problem.

*sigh*

Yes, once again, there is a bully problem, but this one is a doozy. I can guarantee that at least three fourths of you are going to be absolutely furious, so I'll advise you to move all liquids, or breakable objects far away from your computer before you proceed.

Tum-te-tum-te-tum... hmmm-hmmm-hmmmm... dooty-doo-doodle-dee-doooo....

Done?

Okay. This particular bully is the nephew of one of the P.E. teachers and was functioning under the mistaken belief that this gave him complete immunity, a fact he rather gleefully passed on to his victims on a regular basis.

And he's learned not to use his fists on the Impossible One, because Mama gave him the second installment of her "Major Points of Vulnerability on the Human Body - Elementary School Edition" in the backyard. Nothing discourages a bully like a quick elbow to the solar plexus! Hard to chase a kid when you're laying out flat, puking your guts out. Yeah, the Husbandly One and I basically gave Impossible permission to Do Unto Others, Do It Like You Mean It And Knock The Snot Out Of Them. This would, at the very least, get the teacher's attention and warrant a phone call to us, where either I or THO would set them straight... or threaten to file charges.

So... this bully started using his words.

He called the Impossible Son gay.

"Your shorts are too short, they make you look gay! Only a faggot would wear shorts like those!"

"You're so skinny, just like a queer!" "Only a gay faggot would wear those colors!" "You're such a homo, dancing around like that!"

I pretty much hit my limit when the teacher was at the door, taking up books from students coming into the classroom, and the bully took advantage of her distraction to hump Impossible's desk before grabbing his own crotch suggestively while chanting, "Suck it, suck it," to him.

Yeah, the teacher was appalled when I told her this. Aren't they always?

However... the Impossible Son wasn't his only victim, and he was caught yesterday taunting another student about being, "gay." He's hit the zero tolerance policy and apparently one more infraction will get him suspended.

*makes a rude noise*

Being the generous, sweet person that I am, I said, "Is it possible that he has no idea what it means? That he's just repeating something he's heard with the idea that it's funny, or trying to impress someone?"

"Oh, no," said Mrs. G. with a look at Ms. H. "He knows exactly what it means. I asked him what it meant, and he told me and I was rather surprised, but... he knew what he was doing."

I just nodded.

"You look skeptical, Auntie," said Ms. H. "Why?"

"Let's just say I've heard this all before. And frankly, I think the three day suspension, if the parents aren't on board with this, amounts to little more than just a three day vacation." I shook my head. "He's knows what he was doing was wrong, you're right. I just wanted to see if you realized that."

Mrs. G. nodded and then said, "There are... issues... at home, and that is contributing to what the bully is doing here at school." Then she said something that actually gave me some hope and made me want to cheer. "It's a reason, though. Not an excuse."

FINALLY!!

Anyhow, they assured me that they would be informing the counselor of what I'd told them (I'm going to email her again, just because), and that they'd keep an extra eye out for my son, too. And I made sure they understood that if this didn't stop, we'd be filing charges.

Then the bully walked into the classroom with another boy, and I got a huge shock, and a... rather bizarre insight.

Guys, this kid has a LOT of nerve calling MY son gay... considering he was wearing a bright PINK flannel shirt!!

He was big, rather burly for a fourth grader, had two very small blue eyes set too close together in his face, and... the bright pink flannel shirt. Hello, denial much? Trying to divert attention a bit there, dude?

You know, whether or not the Impossible Son is gay is no one's business but his. I will love him just the same, no matter what. He's my son. That's all that matters.

So, the teachers and I have set up a system of communication involving emails, his agenda (a notebook the kids write their assignments in) and phone calls, all to keep the Impossible Son on track with his school work, and to keep him safe. Period. I wish his second grade and third grade teachers had been this willing to work with me.

I dread junior high for Mr. Impossible in a way I didn't with the Impertinent One. Hmmmm... wonder if I can find a Krav Maga class for him. Or kung fu. No, Krav Maga would be better, I think. It's dirty fighting for survival.

*head-desk*

This is the part of parenting that gives me grey hairs, I swear!