Entry for November 29, 2005

I work too much.

Here's to you Pecanman!

I was summoned by a friend tonight. He and I go way back to a time when my kids were small and thier life issues were smaller. He needed a shoulder to cry on tonight. I let him cry. I offered advise, it's his to take or not. Mostly I listened. His life as he sees it is spiralling downward. I know him well. I know what he's made of. It hurt to see him this way tonight.  He's tough, he'll make it through this.  He'll need to clean house and see with his heart what changes need to be made in his life.  He told me that he might just rent a U-haul and one day see him pull up out front. I told him I'd welcome the sight. He won't. I know him well enough to know he won't run away and hide. He will fight. He will win. Funny how friendship lives through the years. Even though we don't see each other for years, sometimes months go by and we don't even talk on the phone, but just hearing his voice throws us right back to the time we met. He says the same thing. It's like no time at all has slipped by. Friendship like ours are rare.  He would call and share the good times and the bad times. I would call and carry on about my kids growing up. We'd share music, and books and talk about the days flying by. Through some really tough times in my life I leaned  on his friendship to help me get on. He is supported by my friendship. We can still make each other sane. Even now, all these years later. I call him the Pecanman . He calls me Snook. It's a comfortable and easy friendship we share. I wish him well. He's a friend that friends envy. I'm proud to call Fred my friend. He is friendship everlasting.

Entry for November 17, 2005 ~ The Damnation OF Snow ~

Fire and Ice

by Robert Frost 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

 

Frost said it best destruction ... I despise snow. I hate it. It is the evilness of winter that suffocates my spirit and makes me cringe in the stillness of it's cloying wetness. It leaves it's mark on me year after year. I love Michigan and all of it's wonders, but damn I hate this soft, white, fluffy percipitation that clogs my mind and stalls my heart. There is nothing that I can find worthwhile about the events of snow. I can drink hot chocolate with marshmallows melting on top in front of a roaring fire cuddled up next to my love in November without the white stuff tick, tick, ticking at the windows. Sure it's pretty, but I could look at it in photographs, while wearing shorts and drinking margaritas on a sunny beach. I shovel it, wipe it, sweep it, salt it, blow it, move it, melt it, drive on it, bundle up against it, curse it, slide on it, skate on it, and still more comes. Play in it? Rarely, and then only when drunk (I don't drink often). My boyfriend says there must be one good snowball fight a year. He also mentioned something about a facewash, and I hope he is meaning Oil of Olay, with a warm washcloth. Because if he thinks that picking up the white stuff and smearing it on a body is fun, he needs to rethink himself. He can call up all the folks he needs to have a snowballfights with, as for me, I'll be in the house waiting for spring.

 

 

 

Today was the first snowfall of the season.

 

 

love me later ~ tj

 

Entry for November 16, 2005

As I told y'all I work with young children, at any moment the most unexpected things can happen. I have a couple of stories to tell you, if you don't want to hear them, then I'm warning you now, stop reading this ...

 

Okay,  you have been warned...

First let me tell you about one particular Wednesday afternoon.  It was a very shitty day, and here's the story:

 

At about 10:55 (lunch time for pre-schoolers) I hear my assistant screaming from the bathroom. I rush in there to see what havoc my beautiful little cherubs have caused to create such a frightful noise from my unsuspecting assistant. Well, by the time I got there, I see liquid sludge oozing down the walls, dripping from the ceiling, and a smell.....oh my god.....never have my olfactory nerves been so assaulted. 

The children had to be taken care of, so I told them we were going to have a carpet picnic upstairs,

in the other teachers room. So there they were, 20 angelic creatures, carrying their plates of mashed potatoes and gravy up a flight and a half of stairs... (you recall the scene after the food fight in ANIMAL HOUSE? nuff said about that!) okay...... 

 By now I have the very intelligent, very resourceful MANAGEMENT on the phone with me, and the thought is to flush the upstairs toilet, "just to see what happens". Ever the employee to do my boss's bidding, I go upstairs, flush the toilet, run downstairs, (side-stepping little piles of white

gluey mashed potatoes all the way down) to see if anything has happened in the bathroom. Lo and behold, there before my very eyes I see Old Faithful, only the scenic view of Yellowstone Park has been disguised as the girls bathroom at Quincy Head Start!!! The toilet, the sink, the boys toilet and sink, the kitchen sink, all geysering brown foul sludge at the same time...in unison! What a sight, what a life....

It appears that the city of Quincy has scheduled it's yearly sewer cleaning for that Wednesday. Whilst unbeknownst to us, the linear line that runs from the road to the building is old and decrepid. The very powerful, very efficient new nozzle the city has acquired, does such a fine job on their system that it blows everything that is in the linear line back up and out through every possible opening it could find in our building.  (At such great force that I heard Ahab himself in the distance shouting, "Thar she blows.......")

The powers that be decide that after the children are put on busses, and the afternoon classes were

cancelled, the staff should take the rest of the day off as half an Act Of God day so clean-up could be done. I like to keep these days for bad weather, so I argue the point. The problem was being solved, I argue, the clean-up is being done, why can't I stay and catch up on paper work? "NO,NO,NO!"

is the answer, an Act of God day it is!

My comeback argument to my boss? "Since when does God have bowel movements?"

 

 (I warned you)

 

One Tuesday

The lesson plans I drew up for this week is Personal Safety. Every year during this part of the curriculum we try to teach the children to be safe with their bodies, or at least give them the tools to tell if something has happened to them.

On Tuesday of this particular week, we were discussing "private parts", where they are on your body, and what a boys are called, as well as what a girls are called. Well, after a very exhausting, seeming endless amount of time, giggles, and hee haws from the group, I had the children tell

me what they call their own private parts.

I heard the usuals, wee wee, tutu, front butt, back butt, winkie. Then I told the group the actual names, penis, vagina, and breasts. 

From the back of the group I hear a little girl, who hadn't yet said one word, say quietly, "No, Miss

Tammy, that's not what boys and girls have." "What do they have?" I asked her.  She stood up and very emphatically announced to me, "Boys have horses, and girls have barns." 

 Now I am usually very generous with the feelings of my babies in the classroom, I am very thoughtful about the feeling of youngsters, but on that Tuesday I laughed my ass off in the presence of this group. The only thing that went roaring through my brain is that the daddy in her house walks in from work, looks at the mommy and declares, "Open up the barn door honey, the horse is coming home!!!"

 

Sometimes, life proves more hilarious than fiction.

love me later ~ tj

 

Returning Men

I received this e-mail from my son Scott in February 2004. His childhood friend was overseas fighting a war that I couldn't comprehend. My own son would shortly depart for that foreign land. My knees were raw from kneeling and praying. "Please bring these boys home safe and unharmed."  Several of my son's buddies chose to fight for the very freedom's we take for granted. Or at least they thought that was their mission. I knew they would all be men once they returned. Boys to men in the hot flash of a gun's firing. How changed they were would not show until the darkest moment in the night, when the nightmares start and the day couldn't come swiftly enough. The perilous pushing of morals to one side as they march out to do the deeds of men. It was in the very midst of this upheaval that I received this letter. 

I feel blessed that all 'my boys' came home, secretly scarred in their own way, but for the most part when we gather as family does, they are unharmed, they are happy. They are among the lucky ones.

From my e-mail box:

This is a powerful message from my best friend. I was hangin’ out with him only a week and a half ago while he was home on R&R. Please have him in your prayers as well as the rest of my brothers and sisiters in Iraq. This is real. Scott

***

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today I had the sadness of attending the 5th memorial since I have been in Iraq. The reason I am writing about this to you all is because I want to tell people about this so I don’t keep it all balled up inside of myself. So in other words you all are very important to me and so I am leaning on all of you.

Three days ago my camp was attacked with rockets. Fortunately I was not here for the bombing. I was off at another camp turning in ammo. For the day I was to turn in ammo I had gotten into an accident and so the group I was with had to stay the night there and come back the next day. Well the next day we had to go pick someone up from another camp. When we got there the individual that we were supposed to pick up was not ready to leave, so we stayed for an extra hour so he could ride back with us.

When we arrived to the gates of our camp is when we were told about the bombing. The attack had just happened five minutes before we had arrived. See if it werent for my accident and then the Major not being ready when he was supposed to be, I would have been in that attacking. For the rocket hit there very tent I would have been in that day. Fortunately I wasn't because of those incident I wasn't in the camp at all.

But, unfortunately there were people in the area of the attack and in the tent. Total there were seven people with minor injuries taking shrapnel in various parts of the body. One had his shoulder ripped off but he is doing fine he has full capability of his hand. Only two were able to return to duty the rest went onto Germany for more surgeries to remove the shrapnel, and for rehabilitation. They will not return to combat duty they will return to Fort Hood and await for our return in March.

The sad part of this day was that there were more then seven casualties, there was one more. His name was Staff Sergeant Turner, he died a few short hours after the attack occurred. I knew this man, for I am saddened for we have lost such a great man. He had been in the military for 18 years. He was Christian, and he showed it everyday in every way. He took great care of his soldiers, and made sure everything with them was more then good. Unfortunately we are not the only ones suffering his loss, for he is leaving behind a wife, and two children. This man went to great extent to make sure his family was taking care of. He rode a bicycle to work everyday just so the money he would have spent on a vehicle went into an account for his son so he could go to college and not worry about the money.

This man will be missed by more people then he could think of, for he touched everyone he associated with. Please take a minute to think there are more SSG Turners out here giving the biggest sacrifice of all... for our country, for our freedom, for our families. Please read and understand this to honor this man and the sacrifice he made for our country. Let people know what really goes on out here. Thank you for your time, and remember things happen for a reason, because that’s the way God planned it.

Thank you, and God bless America.

Love,

Spc. Caleb Michael Monroe

***