Possumblog

Weekend in Revue

Friday--home, stop off for some food, pick up kids, Oldest starts acting like a two-year old. Home, Oldest starts acting like a two-year old, with extreme prejudice. ::heavy sigh:: Mom and Dad leave food in kitchen and other children to their own devices and have two hour talk with Oldest. Oldest tired of being "invisible," translation--"not the most popular girl in school and the constant center of attention by all human beings on the planet." Thankfully, for once Mom did most of the talking, and said the things that needed to be said, rather than glossing over them. I think she was tired of all the crap she's put up with at work, and was too put-out to try to be nice. Basically, if Oldest goes to school and acts the way Oldest does at home, there's a REASON no one wants to be around her. Best quote from Mom--"Shoot--I don't want to be around you when you act this way, either!"

Oldest finally quieted down and continued her self-pity and parental loathing at a much quieter and more moderate level, although never quite seeming to get the idea that no one likes unlikeable people, and the best thing to do is quit being unlikeable while it's still easy to change. Second thing is that it's hard to feel sorry for someone who gets treated badly by others, when that person turns around and treats everyone else--and most especially her parents and siblings--like crap.

This wouldn't really be so stressful except that we seem to have this exact same two-hour exercise about every six weeks or so, and have for the past four years. The way I calculate it, that's about 35 of them. ::sigh:: It'sonlyaphase, it'sonlyaphase, it'sonlyaphase....

Eat supper, then off to bed, then up LATE on Saturday! I couldn't believe it. The kids must have been exhausted, because NONE of them were up banging around the house until after NINE! It sure was nice to get some sleep. And I had the most peculiar dream...

NOW, for those who cannot stand to wade through the recitation of someone else's stupid dreams, please scroll down, or hum the National Anthem or something.

FOR THE REST OF YOU--it was a lovely crisp morning, and I was driving my lovely crisp Volvo somewhere. I wasn't quite sure where, but I did make sure I had my pillow laid up beside my head so I could sleep and drive. I drove along and it occurred to me that I was supposed to be meeting a man at a small restaurant, and it was located over close to East Lake Park here in Birmingham. East Lake is a pretty older neighborhood that has fallen on some hard times of late, but the lake is still nice. (This is what it looked like back around the turn of the 20th century.) But the place in my dream wasn't that--it was like driving beside Lake Como in Italy--beautiful mountains surrounding it, with a crystaline blue lake, and just as I came around a bend in the road, there were huge stands of tall trees with their leaves full of golden fall colors. I thought to myself, "Wow--East Lake really looks NICE this time of year!" I drove on down the road beside the lake and laid down on the passenger seat while the car kept going and I just looked up through the windshield at all the pretty trees. When I got to the restaurant, I pulled up in the gravel parking lot and put my pillows in the backseat so the guy could get in. We drove around for just a bit and then I took him back to his car and that was it. I never really knew why I was there, or why I was meeting him, and we didn't really talk about too much, although I did show him my 200,000 mile badge on the grille. And the restaurant was a real dump, by the way. Didn't even have a paved parking lot.

ANYway, that got the morning off to a nice start, and after breakfast, I set to work finishing up Reba's research paper. It's been typed in small parts over the past year, and so there was really not that much left to do except type the final chapter, get the charts inserted, format the thing, and go have it bound. To make it even easier, Reba took various children with her on shopping trips to find birthday presents for Rebecca (who will turn 13 on Thursday), so that got a lot of noise- and interruption-potential out of the house. I got to type, watch the Alabama game and listen to the Auburn game, all at once. And do some laundry.

Wrapped up around 4 in the afternoon, hopped in the Volvo and took Boy and Rebecca with me to Staples to have it bound. The counter person was a young round cute dark-haired girl who seemed to be very much put out by having to be at work. Not rude, but certainly not very attentive. Just distracted. I asked for black plastic spiral wire binding.

"Umm. Hold on."

She walked over to the work counter and looked around, and Jonathan wandered off across the store to go find the supply of Easy Buttons.

Round Cute Girl came back with a black plastic comb strip. "This is all we got."

::sigh:: "You don't have the wire?"

"No."

"Well, okay--I need these three copies bound, clear cover, black back."

"Okay."

She walked back to the counter and turned back around, "You said you want a clear cover?"

"Yes, clear cover, black back."

"'kay."

I stood there and Rebecca peppered me with questions about everything that fell within her visual field, including the types of binding that Staples supposedly offers--including the ultra-ritzy and hard-to-do spiral wire binding--and as we were standing there I absent-mindedly looked over at the work counter Round Cute Girl was using, and the little bins of supplies.

WIRE BINDINGS
1"

Wait! I strained and sure enough, there was a whole row of wire binding slots, with little wire binding strips sticking out. I ran over to the part of the cashier stand closest to her and said, "Excuse me! Before you get going on that, I just noticed that you've got a set of wire binding strips over there--I saw 1 inch ones--do you not have any in a size that would work?"

She looked at me, then over to the side, then back at me, "No sir, we don't have the machine to do that type."

::blink::blink::

"You don't?"

"No."

::sigh:: You know, you would think that if Staples has a big sign on their copy center portion of the store that says they do spiral wire binding, and they go to all the trouble of stocking spiral wire binding strips, that they would at least have the machine to poke the little round holes and thread the spiral on there. OR, failing that, maybe post a sign that says--"Spiral Binding Machine Not Available." OR MAYBE GO GET SEVERAL OF THOSE STUPID EASY BUTTONS AND START MASHING THEM!

Anyway, that was done, and I paid, and Cute Round Girl went on to "help" a customer for whom she'd just laminated seven pages of something, but only gave back six things to the customer. My bet is that one page stuck to another and both got laminated. Oops. Where's that darned button!?

Home, supper, baths and hair washing and ear cleaning and nail trimming all around, bed, then up again Sunday.

Got there and found out that my curriculum order had come in, so I separated all that out, then found out my 1st Grade teacher for Wednesdays doesn't want to teach, meaning I have one week to find someone. Again, where's that button when I need it? Class done, went to the auditorium for worship, settled in, and Oldest started in again. She was acting like she was taking notes, but mostly just angrily scribbling and punching Catherine in the side for touching her personal space.

I guarantee such behavior does not lead to invisibility. Quite the opposite, actually.

She seems to not understand the concept that how you act in public is, in fact, HIGHLY VISIBLE. Turns out someone said something to her of absolutely no consequence, leading to yet another episode of that heartwarming family comedy-drama, "Acting Like a Great Big Turd!"

Home, lecture, lunch, read paper, and go off with Boy to see about getting the oil changed in the Honda. Nobody open except Wally-World, and there was a line of six cars. At ten minutes per car, multiplied by the Wal-Mart Moron Factor, that would mean we wouldn't be able to get out of there until around midnight, so we just went on back home. With a stop off at Advance. I have decided that while I don't mind letting others change the oil in the Odyssey and the Focus (being that the filter is inaccessible), I will be changing the oil in good old lovable Järn myself. The filter is right there in the open the way it should be, and since I have my own supply of factory filters, I don't like the idea of paying someone else to change it but not getting a discount for having my own filter. They charge you the same no matter what, which offends my parsimonious nature.

Back when I used to work on cars, there was no such thing as recycling oil, but nowadays I think I would feel bad if I dumped it in my neighbor's backyard, so Boy and I got one of those nifty jugs you use to drain the old oil into, and a case of oil, and an air filter. "You wanna help me change the oil? You can learn about cars that way!"

"Uhh, no, Dad."

At least he was helpful in carrying stuff.

Home, unloaded, and decided to wait about changing the oil until next weekend so as not to get all sweaty and greasy right before church. Back for evening worship, then back home, supper, then to bed.

And now, HERE IT AM!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at September 26, 2005 11:29 AM