March 9, 2016

Yoga is SO GOOD for my body.  I stretch, my body feels happy – the appetite is resuming healthily.  I’ve always known it was the answer.

This morning was a CRB morning with some “Burn Slow” because holy hell my heart is hurting. I wanted SO BADLY to give my kids this incredible perspective of Europe – of seeing life differently than is this blinder-led life of frickin’ El Dorado-Hickville-County (is it obvious I am nota fan?). 5 more years in this place and I’m out.  Shit…5 more years…  

Client didn’t show, so I called mom to check in, checked in with parents of other clients – all sorts of grown-up responsible stuff.  I think today is an extension of yesterday’s grownupness. A colleague then uttered a sentence which threw everything into “WOW”ness: "I can't put down a V code under Axis I as a primary, can I?"  That’s a damn fine sentence, colleague.  Thank you.

Rush to juvie for a LONG meeting, rush back to NM for a new client assessment, and then…

Home.  Where my beloved son made baked chicken for me.  No sides (he said I didn’t have anything..guess that white brain-looking hunk of something was playing hid & seek again), but that’s ok, as I didn’t have time to eat my spinach leaves at work, so I had that.  Sold my Hips ticket to a friend to prepare for my big SF night out with my girl.  It’s all good.

Picture: Again - no pics today, so here is last night's fun: creating VW bus stickers.  Jesus is pronounced in teh Spanish form as I have a love affair with Mexican food.  Hell, yes.

January 28, 2016

Up at 4:00 –back to sleep, Up at 5:10, grudgingly got candles/incense burning and did my yoga.  My legs feels so weak and I don’t feel very yoga-ish.

It was a great morning of Yngwie.  I rocked left and right.  Ethan was my guitar for a bit as I wailed on his ribs…Maggie stared at me in sarcastic disbelief as I lip-synced words from an album I idolized far too long ago – and did a damn fine job of doing so.  Dropped them off at their work (school) with fond words.  They’ll be back in a matter of hours as dad has plans this weekend.

Off to juvenile hall where I planned to spend the whole day so I can cut short an hour and a half tomorrow to head to Chico.  I have been invited to participate in the Valentine’s Day treat exchange on the 12^th.  Very cool.  I enjoy working there – a place with different planes, to be sure.  I am there as a therapist – trying to help on one level; guards, POs are there on a different level.  All of us wanting to help these kids, but often from different angels. Interesting, to be sure….  I got a call from my neighbor.  The one day I leave my dogs outside (because I wouldn’t be home until past 7) and of course…I’m sure they’re barking.  Yet her firm (but cheery!) voice let me know AT&T needed to get into the back yard where a pole was – and no the dogs were fine (yay!)

On my way to the clinic, I stopped at the store and found frozen cranberries.  I have to make CC for tomorrow night’s event.  I also bought Perrier.  Stay classy, Chico.  Had a double appointment scheduled at 5:15 and managed to get lots filed before then.  I realized I forgot to buy a Snickers Bar for a kid who has a birthday at the hall, so I bought one as I headed home on a dark, rainy (perfect) night.

Left over burrito from last night was the perfect dinner and then I made two CC for tomorrow night (with a little mini CC for me).  The boy is going to a friend’s house tomorrow night and Mags texted that she’d be at a friend’s until Sunday, so I may check to see if I can drop the dogs off and then I’ll stay in Chico overnight.  Tomorrow I’ll head to juvie and half hour early so I can head out in time to be at the home  by 5. "It's gonna be great..."

Picture: Ball-Point Bird food (and beverage)

January 8, 2016

4:47 beats a 5:55 a.m. clock by a lot, but I really didn’t want Maggie & I to oversleep for her Quoia Café job again, like last time.  Had her to school by 7:15, had Ethan to school by 8:15, and I walked into Juvie at 8:30.  

I nailed out all my sessions – most kidsappreciated it, one not so much, but that’s to be expected.  There was also a lot – and I mean A LOT of screaming (not by me) to the point that my throat hurt.    I guess some folks don’t want to be there. As I sat in there, doing a lot of nothing at times (because I am locked in), I thought about when I was a kid.  I’d roam around and explore all over that West Texas land – places with scorpions, rattlesnakes, all sorts of nasty things and we kids did it alone.  I just think about how things have changed since my day.

THREE Hips shows - that's what I managed to get tickets for today -which made it a TERRIFIC day.  Race back to work – enter notes into the computer then grabbed the kids at school. The plan was to head straight to Ikea, but Mags was hungry and requested pot stickers, so we headed off to procure such.  Dropped Mags at home and Ethan and I headed to Ikea, where I was honored enough to see a Muslim man doing his daily prayers.  I’ve never seen that before and I loved watching him briefly, but I also didn’t want to impede so Ethan and I headed into that huge blue and yellow shoebox.  “A quick trip to Ikea” is about the dumbest thing I have ever thought.  After finally getting what we needed (thank god I asked the guys at the service desk), home…

…where we put together the bed – the three of us, a united team.  Mags and I headed off to the store to grab some bread and something else * and as we drove, she said something to me which floored me: “I hope I am as happy as you are when I grow up.”  She said this to a person who used to fervently wish for death every night of her life, who didn’t want to wake up.  Yet now, every day is an Adventure of Possibility for me.  I love what sobriety brings.  She also told me she put me down as the person she admired the most – a single mother, raising her kids, going to grad school to follow her dreams.  I am so honored that my daughter thinks this, but made sure to quickly tell her that without her dad and grandmother and a ton of other helpers, I couldn’t have done this – that no one does anything alone.

 

And then…we got to the store and headed to the flower department.  We bought a special something for Ethan (with his input) for a special occasion tomorrow.  I’ll fill you in on that one tomorrow. 

Pictures:  Settin' up the calendar; It's not chow mein, it's chow FUN; Beautiful skies; Setting up Ethan's bed, where everyone but him tests it out.

January 7, 2015

Mornings are fun times around here – especially with the help of drizzly skies.  STP continuing their play at the house  while Nirvana takes over in the car.  I believe Jason is coming by on Monday to hook up speakers.  Rawk.

Straight to Juvenile Hall after I drop the kids off where I got 2 assessments done and an individual session as well as getting to know some guards and reading up in veracious texts books.  I’m not really trusted yet, I feel, by staff or kids and that’s perfectly ok, I get it.  I’m new – no one knows me and both groups have their closed little community of sorts. 

 And then, I was honored to be able to watch a graduation ceremony which moved me more than my own did a few months ago.  This kid has experienced a hell I could never imagine and subsequently learned coping skills which resulted being incarcerated here.  Yet before, when I saw this individual at the school I worked at for the last few years, there was always a smile, despite what was going on under the surface.  I would never have guessed, imagining a picture-perfect home life.  That meme which passes through once a month or so about “everyone fighting a battle you know nothing about” is so damn true.  I wish I would have known back then when I was at the school so I could have offered support.

 

Every few months (or maybe it's only twice a year, the years are beginning to blur...) I think there is an interest in me by someone I have could easily develop an interest in.  This lasts a period of days and then explodes into Nothingness again when nothing happens from the other end.  It’s like my quarterly Love high (or lust, but at this point in my life they are one and the same, I think).  If only there was a vending machine….

Picked up Boy (Girl had gone home with a bad headache).  As soon as we got home, I threw a pot roast in and started dooing what I could to cook up dinner.  Girl chopped onions, Boy took care of carrots and we waited.  About a half an hour in, I thought a food truck, Culinerdy Cruizer, was coming up to Red Hawk Casino and I told the kids we’d go here, instead, and have the roast tomorrow, but it was actually Keith and Amy actually going to the casino for pleasure, so kids and I had pot roast tonight– which ended up tasting quite delicious. I love dinner-time with these kids.  It's special.  I wish I made meals more often and we sat down together like this.

 Pictures: A beautiful sky this evening (3 pics); Maggie's shot of Wicked Tree.  She said it looked like it had cotton candy coming out of it; My BBS hours...which I have not recorded since the end of October.  Yikes.

January 6, 2016

Never, never, never leave the dogs out of their crates anymore at night.  It wasn’t too bad, but the whining was a bit much at 5:17.  Was pleased to get a house concert ticket for the Ball-Point Birds at the end of the month in Chico.  That'll be cool.

Meet…meeting…mee…meeting.  Back-to-back-to-back-to-back.  4 meetings (the first and the third were the same one, I only caught parts of it), the second one was regarding juvie, the fourth was at juvenile.  There was no supervisor here, which made it more fun (I was told, as this was my first).

I’m enchanted with the way circles continue to close.  I’ve met the kid now – I worked with the parents before and so much has made itself more obvious.  I am going to make a statement which isn’t necessarily evidence-based, but I will say that kids do not turn out the way they do when they have family support.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to be there.  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is true, though there are always outliers.

Ok.  I am not really like this all the time, but:     

 As I left the hall, there are a series of locked doors (obviously) that I had to be let out of by the guards.  There’s a system with the doors: some you wait on, some you push/pull as they buzz you through.  It clearly requires someone being in there.   I signed out, talking to dude guy, and then buzz, buzz, buzz I was out in the rain, loading things in my car.  Then I saw the yellow prog note…which should have been inside in the office.  So I quickly threw things in the car, and ran back to be buzzed in again (buzz, buzz, buzz).  This is my beginning here and I do not want the initial impression to be that I’m a blonde ditz; intelligent professionalism is my goal amongst colleagues and co-worker, but I swear unless I get a pocket sewn into my body where I can keep spare keys, I’ve got my work cut out for me.  Of course you know where I’m going with this – I get to the car and of course I had no keys, they are locked inside, so I grab my cell-phone which I had fortunately put into my back pocket and called my ex-m-i-l.  There was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to walk inside and say “hi, I also just locked my keys in my car.”  It wasn’t raining very hard – it is actually my favorite weather – a soft, warm (43F) drizzle).  I walked up to the library, looked around the books for a bit, headed back to the hall and just walked up and down the street as if I had a purpose.  I didn’t want to wait in front of the hall by my car, they probably had cameras outside.  Soon she pulled up and I got my keys, explaining my foolish mistake before walking to my car.  After about 30 minutes later, I finally opened my car to grab my – nothing.  I soon realized my keys were left inside when I had returned the yellow prog note.  I had to buzz back in, after all – and there they were, given to me by the guards on duty through the bullet proof glass.  Oh, Pride – you are a joy.  Always present. 

 

Quick run to the store to grab some bread, lettuce, fruit, and at home the kids showed me the box John had carefully packed and sent from Wisconsin.  Inside – 5 delicious cheeses and two packages of fresh cranberries.  The kids and I sat down and enjoyed the most divine “snack” we have had with a warm,  toasty fire making for a perfect evening. Thanks, John – you really turned my day around . 

Pictures: Wisconsin cheese from John!; Inuit dude takes a ride;  There's my car, sitting around waiting to be opened; What a day....