Hatin' the Late Paycheck!

My husband's federal paycheck (for which he works hard, thank you very much) usually hits on Saturday mornings.  Pay runs on Thursday, it hits on Saturday.  Unless there's a federal holiday or a weather disaster (Rita and Katrina wreaked havoc on the pay schedule).  But for some reason beyond us, the check didn't hit on Saturday.  Now, see, here's the catch--it doesn't HAVE to hit on Saturday.  In fact, it's not considered late unless it doesn't hit by the following THURSDAY.  So here we are, with seventy bucks cash and two grocery shopping checks floating around out there, hoping the check hits on Tuesday.  If not?

Scary, sad stuff.  Now, understand, the check has never not come by the following work day (this time a Tuesday because of the holiday), so I'm not TOO worried, but still. I'd rather the thing hit on time.

Still sick.  Voice is better (not great, but better), but I'm still a fountain of phlegm.  Sleeping a LOT (probably the Emerald Death I've been swigging before sleep time), but still waking up glued shut and waiting for the mess to loosen up so I can chug it out.

Once things start moving, though, it comes out pretty smoothly.  That's something.

It's inauguration day.  A very happy/scary thing for me.  We are a country possessed of so many utter crazies that I always fear for our President.  Proud of him, though.  Proud of us, too, that we managed to keep Romney out and bring Obama back.  I'm planning to watch, and that will make it only the second I've watched live.

Going to finally make some candles--hubby got me a candle making kit, with some wax, oils, forms, and a thermometer and pitcher.  I used to make candles all the time, have long wanted to get back into it.  I'm looking forward to it.  Thinking maybe I should start a line of solidly un-mystical candles which have not been prayed over, blessed, infused with holy anything, or in any other way made woo-woo.  Hey, maybe they'd sell, right?

Was grumbling through our old home's local newspaper today, found an obit for Stan Liptrot.  He lived down the street from me for decades.  Really nice guy, great neighbor.  Made it to 90 years old.  Good job, Stan.  You deserved every one of those years, and likely should have had even more.  

Like I said, solidly good guy.  Missed him from the moment he moved away, and not just because of the slobs who moved in after him.  Missed him because he was a great guy to have in the neighborhood.

All sorts of changes going on at Epinions.  New ways of figuring IS, new layout for review lists, etc.  Everyone's crying like the sky is falling, a lot of folks complaining that their IS has crashed, but as someone whose IS has been abysmal for a decade, it's looking like it might just be a marked improvement for me.  Let's hope.  

Dreamed my Mom kept falling down, and every suggestion I gave my sister she shot down.  I was suggesting a rope or chain-type fence (think theater barriers) to act as a guide, or having the sidewalk and driveway repaved to fix the raised cracks and uneven spots, but my sister was having none of it.  Being 2,300 miles away, there wasn't anything I could really do.  Very frustrating.  

Rewatching Justified on Blu-ray because our boy has forgotten a lot of it.  I do love that show.  Haven't gotten to the wonderful, "Now, Arlo, use your words" line, but it's a favorite.  If you think Timothy Olyphant is amazing in Justified, just imagine what he could do in Stephen King's Dark Tower series as Roland.  Hubby is near bursting with frustration over that casting every time we see Olyphant striding purposefully down the blacktop.  He is so obviously Roland, yet it's going to Javier Bardem.  A good actor, certainly, but not Roland.  Not by a long shot.  

And that's all.  Happy Inauguration and hey, here's some Inauguration Day GOOD paneling!  That's right, there's actually some paneling out there I like!  This style I've seen called "Judge's Paneling," and, while I don't have the house to pull it off, I sure do like it in some other homes!

Oh, remind me tomorrow to write about my sister's ex-roommate's gay bathhouse/tubs business.  It's gonna be a rant.

Teacher, Teacher

So, I read an article today in the Washington Post about Michelle Rhee and her ideas about education and kids.  This comes on the heels of watching a Frontline special about her last week.  I remember Michelle from a few years back, and all the uproar with her treatment of ineffectual teachers.  I remember liking the heck out of her then.

I still do.  She's not perfect, but she's smart and she's insightful and she's trying.

Living where I do, the idea that Ms. Rhee's policies have "sucked the joy out of the classroom" or somehow "unfairly burdened" teachers with the responsibility of learning strikes me as ludicrous butt-covering.  Many of the schools in the DC area have long been nothing more than holding pens, where some teachers have been observed sleeping through class, handing out printed out worksheets with no instruction or explanation, etc.  Many of these schools are violent, they're dirty, they're underfunded and under-supervised, and they're definitely NOT hotbeds of learning.  I've heard the "holding a teacher responsible for academic achievement is like holding a dentist responsible for cavities" argument, but that's a lousy analogy that only holds if the dentist has the kid in his office FIVE DAYS A WEEK, NINE MONTHS A YEAR, walking him through dental hygiene each day.  No, I'm not laying it all on teachers (they're a big part, but certainly not the ONLY part), but teachers need to be FIREABLE.  Teachers who are observed being slackers or otherwise ineffectual need to be counseled on how to improve their performance, and if they fail to make those changes, they need to find another line of work.  I feel strongly about this because I believe strongly in the power teachers wield.  We cannot have unassailable teachers--that serves children in NO way.  How could it?  How are students served by being "taught" by teachers who don't care?  Who make substandard effort?  Who don't put forth their best effort because they know they can't be fired?

In some cases, who are barely literate themselves?

I don't hate teachers.  In fact, I think teachers can be THE deciding factor in a child's success and achievement.  And, while I have known some crappy, cliquish, disdainful teachers who reject students based upon their popularity or faith (hello, Utah!), and I have had the occasional teacher who didn't really seem to know much about his subject (hey, Coach C.!), I have never had a teacher who was so lazy and so uninspired and unskilled that they couldn't do their job in most cases.  Plus, I've had a few real stand-outs, too.  That said, I wouldn't say I received an inspired or above-and-beyond education from most of my teachers.  I would, however, say that Utah did okay.  These days, Utah could do a lot better.

But DC?  Wow, what a cesspool.  What happened to classroom integration?  Have you SEEN Anacostia?  From where I'm sitting, it looks ALL black, ALL poor, and TOTALLY underfunded.  It is, to be blunt, a disaster, where kids can't possibly hope to learn.  Now, call me a socialist (go ahead, everyone else does), but I think that the schools in poorer areas need MORE funding than the schools in wealthier areas.  Why?  Because the kids in the "nice" neighborhoods already hit first grade knowing how to read.  They have homes full of attention and books and opportunities to explore and grow.  So they don't need all the bells and whistles at school because they've already got them at home.  No, I'm not saying they need crappy schools to "level the field," but rather that they don't need three or four times (or more) the per-student spending.  In fact, it should be flipped so it's the poorer neighborhoods who get that sort of funding.  After all, there are a lot more obstacles to be overcome living in Anacostia than in Spring Valley.

And we do want kids to overcome those obstacles.  Don't we?  Don't we want those poorer schools to turn out kids who can succeed?  Kids who can rise up and out of poverty and become healthy, happy, contributing members of society?  Don't we want that?

Because it sure as heck doesn't seem like it sometimes.  Especially when we're saying things like "You can't hold a teacher accountable for the education of his or her students."

What?  We can't?  Then what CAN we hold teachers accountable for?

Watch The Education of Michelle Rhee on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

And enough of that.

I'm sick.  Been that way for a few days.  Voice mostly gone, I sound like an adolescent boy being strangled. A LOT of snot, of the bloody, gluey variety.  Contrary to popular belief, snot isn't color coded for our convenience, so who knows what my deal is?  But it came on gradual, like your average head virus, and I'm not too concerned.  It didn't hit like the flu, so that's something.  Yes, I've been vaccinated, but this year they didn't match so well, so that may not be any guarantee.

When I started writing this, the boy had lost my Galaxy Tab, but hubby has since found it.  We really need to work with our boy on effectively searching for things.  At fourteen, he's still terrible for looking straight at things and not seeing them.  No, nothing wrong with his vision, it's perfect.  He's just inattentive.  Maybe we need to do more puzzles and optical illusion-type things.

And finally, because I know you've waited so long, here is that masterpiece of bad paneling, that Tenacious D of DISASTROUS DECORATING, the Big D (kindly provided by Leif over at Ugly House Photos:

Bonus points to anyone who can 1) explain the WHY of the shape here, and 2) tell me what the awful, squidgy-looking brown spots are supposed to represent?  Tuscan-style sponging?  

Steampunking Art

If you've read back through my stuff, you know that I have, for years now, been on the lookout for a vintage mourning locket that was my mother's.  It had been a gift to her from the wife of her father's (my grandfather's) business partner back in Hallstead, Pennsylvania.  It was a large (around two-plus inches long by over an inch wide) gold or pinchbeck (I don't know which) mourning locket with deep scrolling and a large, rectangular black stone--I believe obsidian, but maybe not, maybe onyx.  It was not jet, and it was almost certainly not glass.  I know those things.  The inside was missing the glass, and was an uneven, pale enamel blue.  The chain was incredibly muscular and substantial, a brilliantly heavy box-link chain that was obviously meant to be with the locket.  My mother gave it to me on my wedding day, and, as far as I can tell, the husband of that day stole it when we split up in Provo, Utah a year later.  It's been 28 years since I've seen that locket, and I'm still looking for it.  It means more to me than I can adequately explain.

What does that have to do with Steampunk?

Everything.

You see, I know folks who are completely taken, captivated even, by the whole steampunk thing.  And hey, that's fine, have fun, it's harmless, it's creative, and if it takes your imagination to new heights, that's wonderful.

What isn't so wonderful is how some steampunk folks have taken to snapping up vintage jewelry and tearing it to bits for their own "reimagined" art.  This destroys me, it tears ME to bits.  I can imagine someone taking that amazing, beautiful locket for which I have searched years and tearing the stone off, replacing it with some dippy beetle made out of soldered coathanger and a Heineken bottle cap or some other such thing.  And it makes me almost crazy with preemptive grief.

I've heard the cry, "It's ART!" but I disagree.  It's "art" like me breaking into the Louvre with a can of spray paint and "reimagining"  Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks is art.  The locket itself is art.  To deface it would be vandalism.  If you want to pull apart jewelry and watches and recreate other, new, steampunk-y things, then please, please buy cheap, knock-off jewelry from Burlington Coat Factory and Walmart.  But please don't go to antique shops and vintage stores and snap up treasures for the purpose of defacing them!  If it's the "old" look you're after, it's no big deal to distress metals to make them look vintage.

Please!

And enough of that.  Been thinking about the whole "fiscal cliff" deal and how it doesn't really fix much on the sequestration front because all they did was kick the can down the road by a couple of months.  So we don't really even get to relax much.  We're just caught in the idiot waiting and worrying game again.  Or still.  Thanks, guys.

My son's Christmas card from his Aunt finally came yesterday.  Open and no money.  Yes, she actually put CASH in the card.  So now we're torn.  Do we tell her the card came opened with no cash, or do we just let it go and give him the cash out of our own pocket?  I don't know, but I can't help but feel just a tad pissed off here.  Who puts cash in a card these days?  Why would anyone do that?  My mom also sent a card, and it showed up the same day, also opened.  But she had included a check, not cash, and the check was still there.

Grrr.

Going shopping tonight.  Going to work very hard to keep it cheap AND to load up on fruits and veggies instead of crappy snacks.  It's time to rein this in before my blood sugar becomes a real issue again.

Speaking of real issues--going into week three without seeing any lice.  We're pretty sure we know who they're coming off of, and there's not really anything we can do.  It's another boy in Hapkido, really unkempt, seems mentally troubled, perhaps autistic?  Bad body odor, really greasy hair.  No, I don't believe any of those things give you lice--case in point, my kid with the clean hair and the fresh-smelling armpits.  But this boy has problems with being touched, and the only time we find lice on MY boy is after he's been paired for sparring with the boy I'm talking about.  And he is FOREVER scratching at his head.  I'm thinking he has a wowser infestation and won't let anyone in close enough to see or do anything about it.  So we'll just keep doing what we're doing--when my boy comes home, he rinses his hair, and then I thoroughly lice comb him and blow his hair out to fry the bastards.  I don't see another option that doesn't damage the studio owner (and he's a nice man) or cause that disturbed boy harm, and I'm not looking to have him thrown out or whatever.  So we lice comb.  Now that we're aware of the problem and the likely source, we should be able to stay on top of it.

And before anyone says anything about me being mean by saying I think the boy is likely autistic?  My boy stopped talking right after his first birthday.  And he stayed non-verbal for over a year.  At the same time, he began developing odd repetitive tics and took to screaming and hitting himself whenever anyone sang or whistled.  We spent years working with him to get him past the spectacular Asperger's gig he had going on.  And there are still issues, though most are so dramatically improved that the average person dealing with him doesn't notice.  So I'm not being mean, I absolutely sympathize with the boy and his parents.  So much so that I'll put up with my boy being exposed to lice up to three times a week.

And, finally?  Bad paneling!  Bad!

I really do think the lighter ones offend me the most.  Nothing like a little "blond" paneling to make my fingernails itch.