incredibly proud

My imp read around half of a book to himself--I just helped with the long words, and read the sentences that he'd read the words to, after he finished, to give him a sense of the story--last night before bed.

long weekend

I was actually glad that it was Monday, this morning.  I had nearly three quiet hours to myself, which I put to good use in beta reading for a very good friend.  I've got only about 21 pages to go on his book, and was, quite frankly, a little disappointed when three o'clock rolled around and the imp got home from school, because that meant I couldn't go back to it. 

(I had a friend call, and I don't get to talk to her very often.  Otherwise, I'd probably be a lot closer to finished.)

I plan on finishing up tonight, and emailing it back, then starting on revising Fire and Forge.  And looking forward, again, to Wednesday, when I'll have the better part of five hours to myself, while my students find a computer and compose their papers...or not, since they're college students, but this removes the excuse of "I didn't have time" for the purposes of penalizing late work.

Tomorrow, I'll be minding a pixie all day, and Odysseus will likely start having midterms to study for within the next three weeks or so. 

random ramblings

My imp brought home new homework, this past week.  Phonics homework that involved more than letter sounds, and consonant-vowel blends.  His new homework involved whole words. 

My son is reading.  Less than eight weeks into kindergarten, and my son is reading.  It's something he's wanted for over a year. 

We've bought him some level one step into reading books as incentive and reward.  He's now got a set of books about Iron Man, Captain America, Spider Man, Thor, Wolverine, and The X-Men.  I can't wait to help him read them.  I cannot begin to put into words how proud I am.

The pixie got sent home with a green chalk board with lines painted on, and her name written on it for her to trace.  I've given her a stick of yellow chalk, and she's having a blast.  She's already quite good at tracing her name.  I'm very proud of her. 

The cats have rediscovered the kitty tree we got them a while back.  I think something close to a year and a half ago.  Both cats have been in the top shelf, snuggled together, the past three mornings when we've opened the pantry door to let them into the house.

Yes, we still shut the cats out of the main part of the house overnight.  They're rude, and decide to come into the master bedroom and play at two in the morning.  No way in hell are we going to leave them running around loose. 

I got the papers turned back to my students, yesterday.  I don't have to pick up papers for a bit more than a week.  I'm going to spend that time finishing the beta-reading I've been privileged to do, and finish rewriting bits of Fire and Forge. 

Right now, though, I need to go assemble lunch to take along to my mother's--a beef enchilada casserole. 

Today...

I had one of my students ask me what I knew about "ISIS or ISIL, or whatever they're calling themselves, now."  She asked me who they were, what they did, and whether I thought they were a danger.

So, I told her.  And watched her turn gray when I mentioned that they'd been seen in country, thanks to our non-existent southern border. 

And then, I pull up FB and find this: a brand new Muslim, converted in jail, gets fired, gets pissed off, beheads the first person he runs into in the plant, and stabs another.  He'd have probably done more damage had it not been for the COO of the company, who was a concealed carry holder and "reserve" deputy.  I can't find the press release to link, but here is a photo:

I've seen it written that it's "extremism," and that it wouldn't be any different if it were a Christian. 

I beg to differ.  The most I've ever seen Christian extremists do, as a group, is annoy the hell out of people, and tell them that they're going to hell.  An extremist Muslim attempts to send people there on the express lane. 

Wow.

This.  This defies description.

Actually, no--this defines schadenfreude.  You know the aide has committed what amounts to a political suicide bombing on his own boss by accident.  I feel sorry for the poor idiot, but I'm still laughing at him, his boss, and the situation.   

It's up.

My children's book is up.  Lizzy's Tail is $3.41 in paperback (with a Kindle copy coming free), or $0.99 on Kindle. 

I'm still alive, here--

--just very, very busy.  I've been trying to catch up on things that I let slide when everybody got sick last week, and trying to get my grading done.  I want to get that finished by tomorrow, because I need some extra days of doing nothing before I pick up the next papers on my imp's birthday (which will be celebrated amongst family the weekend before). 

And the pixie is still sick: hacking and coughing, running snot, and running a low-grade fever, which I'm disinclined to treat since letting it run its course will help her get over whatever she's got faster.  If it spikes, that changes, but for now...yeah. 

Any case, I've still got a little bit more to do to catch up with housework, and then I have just about 20 more papers to grade.  Best get to it.

And...waiting.

The children's book has finished going through file review, and will be appearing on Amazon in a few days.  Once the paperback and the Kindle copy are linked, then the order of the paperback gets you a free Kindle copy.

Be on the lookout.

Lizzy's Tail is undergoing file review through CreateSpace.  I'll keep y'all posted about when the book will be published.  I'll be ordering personal copies not long thereafter. 

random ramblings

The imp has mostly recovered from his ordeal with the stomach flu.  He attended school yesterday after having been sent home on Wednesday, and having been out sick on Thursday (mostly recovering from Wednesday and Wednesday night).  Amidst everything, he earned new cars (he gets one single $0.97 matchbox/hot wheels car for a solid week of behaving to a minimum standard every day) in the last three weeks. One little boy that struck me as a completely spoiled little shit actually had his mommy help him make my imp a get well card.  

Christian schools definitely have their uses. 

The pixie has missed one day of preschool from illness, this week.  Her teacher is inordinately kind, and wasn't upset that I sent her without her makeup work done on Friday, since I got two hours' sleep early Thursday morning, and a sick kid (and a still-sick husband) to deal with, and hadn't gotten it done with her. 

The cats had to spend a couple of days shut back in their rooms.  My stomach wouldn't have taken kindly to being stepped on on Tuesday, and the imp kept falling asleep (and probably wouldn't have taken kindly to being stepped on) on the couch on Wednesday.  They're making up for it now, though. 

I managed to make it to school on Wednesday, despite still feeling a little sick and a lot weak.  It was workshop day, so thankfully, all I had to do was sit at my desk. 

Friday, on the other hand, I had papers to pick up.  And the next one to start.  I think about a third of one class is going to evaluate their favorite sports teams.  We'll be talking criteria on Monday--yesterday was simply topic selection.

I've already gotten Fire and Forge back from one beta reader (for whom I am beta-reading something) as of last night.  Unfortunately, anything fun is going to have to wait until I've finished grading papers. 

Damn it.  I'd rather be beta reading than grading papers.  Really, really rather be beta reading than grading papers. 

Really, now.

So.  The grateful inhabitants of areas plagued by Ebola have decided that the aid workers are superfluous to their wellbeing and existence. 

Cool.

Let's set up the quarantine containment around the area and deal with the problem, then.  Napalm should do the trick, as well as be fairly cheap, and leave no long-lasting contaminants.

FFOT: illness and misery

I can't think.  Too much sleep debt.  Stomach viruses taking down the whole family two by two can fuck the fuck off. 

I'd write a post, but...

I'd probably end up whining and complaining.  So, I'm not gonna.  Especially since fucking YouTube won't let me share one fucking video with y'all. 

Damn it.  Cherry topping, shit sundae. 

This should be a nation-wide requirement.

Missouri is contemplating passing legislation to make passing the citizenship test administered to immigrants mandatory for high school students to graduate.  The students will be required to make a 60%. 

I had no trouble making a 60% at fourteen, and 97% at eighteen, so I see nothing wrong with this.  In fact, I think it's an excellent idea to making this a requirement to vote.  As in: you have to pass this test every election cycle for five cycles in a row before you become permanently enfranchised. 

Illness...

...has struck my household.  First it was the pixie.  Then, Monday night, I caught it, and spent yesterday immobilized and miserable (while the pixie was feeling tons better).  Today?  I'm still not feeling good, but I'm a bit better than yesterday.  And the school called at about 11:30 to tell me that the imp had puked on the playground. 

This.

This is funny.

Gah.

We took the kids up to visit my mother on Saturday.  We took the entire meal* so that Mom wouldn't have to do much with a non-operable sink (the hose on her pull-out sprayer faucet 'sploded last week).  Saturday afternoon, my mother took the kids outside to chase bubbles when we visited her.  I let the pixie go outside in her jacket with her hood up.  I thought it would be okay--I thought she was nearly over her virus.

Well, Saturday evening, she was worse, probably because of overexertion in chilly air.  Sluggish, coughing more, and cranky.  She didn't want to eat, but I made her (a mistake, in hindsight).  When I put her to bed, she spent the first two hours crying every half an hour.  And then...at 10:30, she threw up.  When I checked, she'd spiked a 100.5 fever, so I gave her some ibuprofen, Odysseus cleaned up her bed (and I cleaned her up), and we put her back to bed. 

So, I had a lethargic, queasy, cranky pixie to keep still and quiet all day yesterday.  She ate two, two inch diameter pancakes, a couple of saltine crackers, and three squeeze things of applesauce.  And that was it for the entire day.  She felt feverish for about half the day, then acted like it'd broken (but still wouldn't eat much) yesterday evening. 

Today, I've got a pixie who I don't want to risk sending to school.  Especially since she's eaten better, but not very good yet.  She'll eat a little, then push it away because her tummy is sick.  She's currently sitting on the couch watching Sleeping Beauty, and drawing with crayons and printer paper. 

*Rotisserie chicken, pre-made scalloped potatoes, salad, Hawaiian rolls, and a cinnamon crumb cake--which came to about $30 from Sam's Club, and would have easily fed six adults and two children.

Random ramblings

Well, the imp missed a solid week of green or better days at school, this week. The school we chose tries to teach more than just curriculum--they try to teach responsibility, too.  Unfortunately for the imp, his mind works like mine does, kinda chaotic, and he's having trouble remembering to put his finished stuff in his takehome folder, and his not-finished stuff in his work-at-school folder--he just shoves it all willy-nilly in his desk.  Yesterday, his teacher cleaned his desk out and off, and told him where to put what.  Twice. 

Which meant he got a yellow day. 

Which, in turn, meant that he didn't watch TV after homework (and yes, I made him do his homework last night--I want to get him into the habit of doing it immediately, not waiting until the last minute). 

And which means that I need to figure out a system in his room for putting away his toys to help him get into the right mindset.

The pixie is starting to not call me to clean her up after using the bathroom.  This led to her having a small smear in her undies yesterday, which the preschool teachers spotted, and changed her bottom half out from the clothes kept in her backpack. 

So, instead of the full-length leggings she wore to school, she came home in capris under her dress.  And got cold and stayed cold all day. 

Then again, she's also a little bit sick.  Not enough to run a fever, but enough to be a little miserable, and throw her appetite off.  I've been a little more understanding of bad behavior, but not a whole lot.  And not by letting her get away with it.

I measured the two of them against a wall last week.  The imp has grown about half an inch in three months.  The pixie?  An inch and a half.  No wonder we can't seem to keep her in dresses that go to her knees--it seems like all the height added has been in her legs.

The cats have gotten squirrelly as the temperatures have cooled (yesterday didn't quite make sixty degrees for the high).  Shadow, in particular, has been acting out of character--she's been tearing through the house, batting a toy between her front feet like it was a soccer ball.  She's also been picking up the catnip fish and carrying them somewhere more comfortable (read: warmer) to snuggle like a small child with a stuffed toy. 

Mom tells me that our dog is still making trouble with the other dogs (read: she's an alpha personality settling into place among beta and omega dogs), but that she's just pudding sweet with my mother.  A very, very loving little dog that likes to curl up at my mother's feet. 

And that she's got great manners in the house. 

I really, really wish she'd shown that here. 

So, unfortunately, the racist twit turned her paper in by the extension time I gave her, and unfortunately, it was a good paper.  I can't fail her or boot her out of class for sheer stupidity, and she's not given me any more reason.  And she's too dumb to realize just how ostracized she is now.  I strongly doubt she's going to get anyone to workshop her paper, next week, and strongly doubt that anyone's going to let her read theirs. 

I got the first paper graded and turned back by Friday--a week after I'd picked them up.  The upcoming Monday is freewrite day, Wednesday is Workshop day, and next Friday I have another paper coming due.  So I have a week with no grading, then I've got paper two to pick up and organize and start on. 

This week, I had a short story come to mind.  I started fidgeting, just playing with words while I was waiting for the class platform to cycle (in vain, as it turned out--it never did work that night).  Started out by describing a match and what it's useful for in general terms, and then had a character butt in and assert "I ate them like candy." 

Um...what? 

I gotta know more.

Four thousand words, and that makes three stories that don't fit anything or anywhere else.  I'm thinking about just collecting those and popping them out in a collection once I've got enough.  Right now, those three make up about 13,000 words, or so. 

At least that story is out of my head, and has let me go, now.  Next?  Revising Fire and Forge for a second draft. 

I'm hoping to have that done by the end of the month, and have it out to beta readers by the beginning of next.

FFOT: Flag lowered over Pentagon

I really didn't care for the symbolism, yesterday, of the flag coming down over the Pentagon.  Really, really, really didn't like that.  I have to wonder if the twatwaffle that thought of the whole lowering of flags to "honor" the attacks have forgotten our national anthem:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The flag needs to never be lowered to "honor" victims of a war declaration.  If anything, it should be raised higher.  Because lowering it?  Yeah, I can see that in honor of something like Sandy Hook, or Columbine, where lone crazy attacks the completely innocent.

When it's brought to half-staff in "honor" of the victims of enemy action during time of war...that stinks of surrender.

And that...that can fuck off.

I am still angry.

I have five Muslim students this semester.  Two of them are girls.  Three...three, I'm just watching closely, and waiting for them to suddenly explode--they're around nineteen years old. 

It's irrational.  I've heard them discussing ISIS*--and shutting each other down and shuddering.  They're terrified of the militants.  All five of my students are terrified of them.

I'm not afraid.  I am angry.

I'm angry that King Putt called for a near-complete draw-down of our troops.  I'm angry that he displayed his weakness and gave them the impression that it's our country that's weak.  I'm angry that he's permitting these monsters to cross our southern border with impunity.  I'm angry that we haven't nuked the entire area, since the only thing these uncivilized barbarians understand is an overwhelming display of strength--which we haven't displayed. 

I'm angry that we've wasted so many lives trying to put a lid on a pot that's been boiling over for decades, rather than simply turning off the burner by tapping our own oil reserves and ceasing to fund the terrorist-run regimes in the Middle East.  I'm angry that, in the name of political correctness and anti-racism, old and middle-aged white people get probed and groped in air ports while Muslims waltz through unmolested. 

The terrorists won.  And I'm in a bloody, blind, frothing rage about that. 


*Ironic, isn't it, that a Muslim organization is named after a pagan Egyptian goddess.

I do believe...

I'm going to be able to get all of the papers graded by Friday.  I've only got half of the second class's papers left to grade. 

Ow, ow, ow...

I don't know what I did to my lower back, but it hurts to stand up, sit, lay down, move, or be still.  Here's hoping some sleep clears that up.

DTFO!!!

I have had one of the most uncomfortable mornings teaching that I have ever had in eleven years of standing in front of a classroom.  For the first time in my career, one of my students said something blatantly racist.  We were discussing how long drugs can be detected in someone's system through their hair, and this fifty year old woman pipes up with "That's why so many black men shave their heads bald."

Umm...what?  No.  No, it isn't. 

This woman has not struck me as the brightest bulb in the box.  She's needed more help to get less done than everyone else in her class, and now?  Now, she says something blatantly racist like that in a class where everyone is twenty years younger than her, at least, and then tries to defend said statement with "I'm not racist!  My fiance is black!"

Wow.  And she didn't even realize that the whole class was about to dog-pile her for that statement, and glared at me when I shut discussion down to move to another topic. 

There were two black kids in that class.  And the young man is one of the two cleanest-cut of his particular age group in the class.  There are four Muslims in that class, and they are all very dark, and were just as shocked and disgusted as everyone else.  The one sitting next to her got up and moved a seat down away from her.

And she didn't realize how angry the entire class was.  Nor that the whole class was about to dog-pile onto her.  Nor yet that almost all of the black men on campus wear long, beautifully maintained cornrow braids, nor that most of the bald guys in the area shaving their heads are white.

That takes a special kind of stupid, one that I don't have patience with, and doesn't belong in a college setting.

I don't care what you think, only that you think...and that includes determining when and where is appropriate to open your mouth and spew stuff that sounds like it came from the Jim Crow south.

This dumb bitch really needs to drop out...or at least drop my class.  

Choices and consequences

Last week, one of my students who came from my Comp I class (which was about a year and a half ago) came to class twenty minutes late.  Since I like the kid, I didn't do more than tease the hell out of him.  I like most of my students, so that's my likely response to any of them that hadn't cleared it with me beforehand.

Most of the time, consequences aren't so benign. 

I see a lot of poor choices on the college campus--everything from blowing off classes in favor of partying, to blowing off paying bills in favor of spending money on what they want.  From sleeping with everything that moves and wondering why they can't find a relationship, to badly socially awkward guys wondering why everyone thinks they're creepers. 

Choices carry consequences.  Always. 

Records of repeated poor choices result in a lifetime of grinding poverty and debt.  Always. 

My family is an incredibly good example of this: my mother and sister, in particular, consistently make poor choices that leave them unable to tread water, at times. 

When I was in college as an undergrad student, my mom decided she needed to replace her '86 Cougar (she did).  Instead of looking for a good car in her price range, she overspent by double her budget on a Ford F-150.  A 4x4 with a beefed-up (but not cared for) transmission for towing, and two giant gas tanks.  The trouble started almost immediately: the truck was eight years old when she got it, and had been a farm truck--one that was used hard.  The steering started having trouble.  The transmission started having trouble.  The electrical system started having trouble.  The truck has cost her more than she could afford to pay for twelve years because all she looked at were the monthly payments. 

And all of this financial trouble has kept my sister living with a woman who constantly keeps the abuse we lived through, and our abuser, in the front of my sister's mind.  I didn't start to heal from everything until I got the hell away.

That's only one issue.

My sister has been looking to move into low income housing, where utilities and cable are actually part of the rent--$400/month.  That would leave her $200/month for food and dry goods, but she swears that she wouldn't be able to make it on that. 

Um...yeah.  The only reason that that wouldn't be enough is that she doesn't shop wisely.  I've seen my mother and sister's grocery budget.  They buy name brand everything--it has to be top quality, or it simply isn't good enough.  Never mind that there is little to no difference in quality.  They spend twice the amount to feed two people that I spend to feed two adults and two children. 

So, my sister chooses to stay in a very bad environment because she's convinced that it will take more than her check to survive.

Poor choice, harsh consequence. 

My father-in-law is an example of precisely the opposite: when his first child came along, he looked at his income and spending habits.  He realized that he could either buy cigarettes or diapers, and he quit smoking. 

The people I've overheard on campus complaining about not being able to afford more than ramen as they light up a cig doesn't bear thinking about. 

Choice, consequence.

This semester, I've had four students so far dropped from my class for non-payment of tuition.  One of them has come and talked to me, asking if I'd give them a copy of the text, and would let them back into class when they got the money together.  I asked them if their loans and grants hadn't come in on time, and they said that they had, but...they'd used the cash on a car.  Because they hated their old car, and wanted a new car.  And since they made that choice, I had to give them my textbook, and tell them to try again next semester, if they qualified for loans after they'd committed fraud. 

The choice made here was beyond stupid; the consequence could well be no more funding for college, at best, and jail time at worst.  Not to mention debt that never goes away.

Speaking of such, how many of us have seen the pitiful "I got a MA in Women's Studies, and can't find a full-time job, or one that pays more than minimum wage, and can't afford to feed my children" twits online?  Seriously, they put themselves into six-digit debt to an entity that never goes away, and doesn't vanish with a bankruptcy filing. 

Worse are the ones that almost make the right decisions: they get their degree, they go to work in their area, and find out they've been lied to about their likely income. 

I have a cousin in this situation.  She got a degree, and then a master's in social work.  Her advisors told her that she'd get a larger percentage paid by the government of her fees when she went to work as a counselor than someone who got a master's in psychology. 

She graduated, and went to work.  She got the larger percentage, yes, but it was a smaller dollar amount because a MS in psychology got paid half again what she did.  On the upside, she worked for five years in "underserved areas" and got her debt--something close to $60K--forgiven, so she doesn't have her student debt hanging over her head, just her husband's.   She's currently working seventy and eighty hours a week to be able to afford food, utilities, medical insurance, and other basic necessities, as well as her daughters' extra-curricular activities. 

My cousin is facing the consequences set for her by someone who lied to her, when she didn't research to make sure that what she was told was the truth.

Ooh--case in point of poor decisions: there is a student outside my classroom (my door is open, the lights are on, and I'm playing music on my laptop, so if they were paying attention, they'd realize that there was someone listening).  They're on their cell phone (bad choice #1--unneeded contract cost), complaining loudly about having to buy everything to stock a household because they chose to break the rental contract over a fight with their roommate (bad choice #2--the roomie, apparently, owned everything) and move out into their own apartment.  "Do you know how much everything costs?  How much money I'm having to spend on things like towels, and dishes, and stuff?"  Sounds like the poor darling is buying absolutely everything new--bad choice #3, since it's pretty easy to find durable goods used for pennies on the dollar of the price for new things.

Choices.  Consequences.  Suck it up, learn from it (not likely), and stop being stupid.  Life will be much easier when you're not paying stupid tax on your choices. 

Feeling a bit lost...

I have finished the first draft of Fire and Forge.  I've got grading to do, but no other projects to focus on.  Well, I do have the one I'll be working on while my wonderful beta readers are going through that, but I'm still in the very basic planning stages.  Characterization, plot outlining...that kind of stuff.

But that's for later.  Just don't have anything to work on today, and feeling a bit strange because of that.

random ramblings

The air conditioner was fixed yesterday afternoon.  And last night, we had a cool front move through, and we've dropped thirty degrees in less than twelve hours.  Today's high is 73.  We seem to be near done with the very hot part of summer--although, it wasn't as bad as it has been in past summers.  Instead of a solid month of triple-digit highs, we had about three days or so.  Total.

The imp managed a solid (though short) week of green or better on his behavior calendar, despite having a disruption in his schedule with a substitute teacher for two of those days, and despite me being a bad mommy and forgetting his allergy meds yesterday morning.

The pixie has not yet failed to bring home a good behavior report.  No, she's not perfect, but girls tend to have an easier time adjusting to a classroom setting.  She's very, very happy, and is terribly disappointed on days she doesn't have class.  I think that, next year, if we can afford it, and can do the back and forth, she's going to want to do four day Pre-K. 

I ordered one of my favorite Disney movies for the kids last week.  Sleeping Beauty.  The pixie loves it.  The imp actually likes it, too.  Although, Maleficent scared the bat-snot out of the imp. 

We experimented with leaving the cats free overnight.  About 6:20, or so, Shadow shoves the bedroom door open.  And then, Cricket followed.  And then Cricket got lost, and started crying. 

I got up and booted both kitties, and then the imp woke up and got up.  And thought it was a school day.  Finding out that it wasn't really blew his routine all to hell, and he's been whiny and badly behaved since then. 

My classes turned in their first paper yesterday.  I just got all of the emailed papers printed, and I'm about to print the grading rubrics. 

After that, I need to print a copy of Fire and Forge, three-hole-punch it, put it in a binder, and set it aside for a while.  I'll probably pick it up to work on after I get papers graded.  But yes: the first draft is done. 

On a whim...

Ordered this on 8/9, got it today.



The scrip inscribed on the cap says it's a Hero brand 901.  So far, it's a neat little pen.  Yes, it took forever to arrive, but its origin was from the factory in China, so I really have no complaints. 

I filled it with purple ink.  It took a bit to get the ink down into the pen proper, but once it did, the pen wrote smoothly and without hesitation.  It is an Eastern medium nib, which is somewhere between European fine and medium. Yes, the ink bleeds through the paper, but I think that's more a function of the Noodler's Purple than it is the nib.  I think.  Not sure. 

I cannot complain about the quality, especially when you factor in the cost ($3.87 and free shipping).  It is, so far, a good pen, better than my $16 Parker Vector.  The pen is, mostly, metal, and is on the heavy side...which I like.  Your mileage may vary.

FFOT: another list

A good friend of mine was hospitalized at the start of the week because her insulin prescription ran out, and the pharmacy, which is not in town, but is the only pharmacy covered, declared that they'd tried to reach her doctor (lies), but never got a refill order, so she could just bugger off to the hospital with DKA.  Because an emergency 'scrip is far more than they can afford.  So the "Affordable" Care Act and the machinations it's forced insurance companies into to be able to stay afloat can fuck the fuck off.  And King Putt can chansawdomize himself with a rusty, poorly lubricated chansaw that jerks to stops and starts at random intervals.

The lightning storm that blew the fucking AC compressor off the fucking unit can FTFO.  The kids have been whiny, the cats have been whiny, and I've completely lacked patience with the cats underfoot and the kids' acting out.  Thank God that was under warranty--otherwise...yeah, it would hurt family finances.  A lot.  As it is, it's still going to smart.  And that can fuck off, too.

And, once again, nursemaid's elbow can fuck the fucking fuck off.  One of the pixie's preschool classmates had her daddy cause a case.  I don't know who was more distressed, the little girl or her daddy.  And yes, I did help. 

Wow.

Worse than we thought, but better than it could have been. 

A few days ago, our area had some pretty intense lightning.  And then a couple of days of cool weather, where the AC wasn't running. 

Yesterday, it got hot, and yesterday we noticed the AC wasn't working.  This morning, we had the AC guy out...and then the electric guy...and then the AC guy again.  Turns out, the lightning had caused a surge that didn't just blow the breaker on the actual unit--it blew the electrical component of the compressor, and blew the compressor lose from the rest of it. 

Thank God the thing is still under warranty.  The labor is going to cost, and if it hadn't been under warranty, adding parts to it would have made it cost out the ass.  As in, it would have cost almost a third of the initial unit cost. 

So.  The thing will be fixed tomorrow while I'm at work, since it's all outdoors work and they don't need us here for that.  And Odysseus will hand over the check as soon as he gets home with the pixie, right about the projected finish time.

And...wow.  Lightning.  Wow.  Blew the compressor off.  Kinda some scary stuff. 

Oh, brilliant.

The heat and air guy has been and gone.  The problem isn't with the air conditioner.  The problem is electrical.  There's power in the house at the breaker box, but it's not making it out to the compressor.

That means that the relatively simple, inexpensive fix that I was thinking we needed (a refill on the coolant) is going to turn into a much more expensive fix by an electrician. 

Can I go to bed and wake up after everything is better?

So, after I got home from work today...

• Our AC went out today.  Came home to a house sitting at 80 degrees, and it's only gone up since.  Blower is blowing tepid air.  Repair guy comes tomorrow.

• Called to chat with my mother, and found out from my sister that she'd gone to the ER with possible stroke symptoms (dizzy and sick, couldn't string two thoughts together).  

• Got a call from my sis about two hours later, telling me that the ER sent mom home with instructions to go to her primary care physician tomorrow.  Primary care doc won't see her 'til Monday.  Fucking Medicaid...

Seriously, I just want this shit to go away. 

Hellacious morning...

Pro tip: never hit the snooze more than once when all of your family members need to be out the door in time to get the kids to school and the adults to school/work. 

I still haven't had my coffee.  I've had bit less than half.  Too busy getting the kids dressed and fed, and getting me dressed.  Getting the kids' bags together, as well as mine.  Getting the imp's lunch packed. 

No, my brain isn't working just yet.  And no, I can't go get more coffee from the coffee shop downstairs--the only one who can make the coffee taste good has been transferred out of the coffee shop, because any monkey can make coffee, right?  So, now she's in janitorial.  Brilliant. 

I'm returning to this after an hour or so of break, while I dealt with some small bits of work.  I finished my coffee.  I'm still brain-dead tired, but I'm as awake as I think I'm going to get, this morning, so I'm going to get to work on the next to last chapter of Fire and Forge.  I have through about 1:00 pm on Friday to finish the book without worrying about grading taking time and attention, since today is workshop day and Friday is when the paper is due (all except for one extra student to whom I've granted an extension, due to injury and living somewhere she can't get affordable internet access). 

I've got some housework to deal with after I get home, so now's just about the only time I'm going to have to write until after the kids go to bed. 

We need the rain

We had thunderstorms all night, and for a good part of the morning up to now.  Loud thunderstorms that kept Odysseus up, and woke me repeatedly.  I don't appreciate the constant waves of thunder and lightning, but we sure need the rain.

Thankfully, they didn't seem to disturb the kids.  In fact, it kept the sky dark enough that the pixie slept until almost 7:30, something she hasn't really done since school started.  The imp had to be awakened so that he could dress for school. 

Speaking of, I wasn't the one that woke him, this morning.  Apparently, my blog post from last night made Odysseus feel guilty (unintended consequence, that), and he got up and got the imp up and dressed and fed, this morning.  I only woke when Odysseus came in to shower after he'd gotten the imp dressed and fed.  

The pixie woke up after I did.  Which isn't at all usual, when I'm not getting them up to get dressed for school.

I am...tired.

I've been getting to bed really freakin' late for how early I have to get up every morning.  Extra coffee just isn't cutting it now. 

Pixie is abed.  I've finished the chapter of Fire and Forge I'd been working on for the past couple of days.  I think that, instead of working much longer on the next to last chapter, I may just go hit the sack myself. 

Because 6:30 am is awfully early.