One advantage for our neighbors: all this wind has blown down the excessive Halloween decorations of one of our friendly neighbors.
Collateral Damage
Month: September 2022
Before the Storm
Abandoned House
Volleyball Tuesday
The Girl's team played Woodmont High today -- where three of her former teammates play. Mauldin is the team to beat right now, and when the home team went up four points on us, the crowd was going wild.
Then our girls got their act together and won by four points.
There's always a bit of an advantage, I think, being the underdog on the home court. You really have nothing to lose, and if you hype yourself up enough (and you actually have the skills), you can convince yourself you can win. And then when you are winning, when it looks like you might pull off an upset (at least one set), your confidence soars. Until you start making mistakes, the favorites start coming back, and you start doubting yourself.
So Mauldin came from behind to win the first set 25-21, and in the second set, they did what I believe they felt they'd do the first set: they won 25-15. The third set was 25-18 or something like that, but they came close to losing the first set due to underestimating the opposition.
"Plus," the Girl explained, "everyone thinks we're the team to beat, so they play their best against us."
After a tough club season last year, it's good to see the Girl winning again.
Evening Swim Plus
Monday for us is YMCA night -- swimming. The outdoor pool is still open, and while the air is cool, the water is surprisingly warm. Sometimes we go as a family (minus the Girl, who's always doing something else), and sometimes it's just the boys, along with a friend from time to time.
I try to swim some laps, but I usually get to about 500 yards, and I'm exhausted. My arms burn; my pulse is racing; my legs hurt.
What gives me a sickening feeling is the thought that when I swam competitively in high school, we used to do 600-yard swim/kick/pull (200 yards of each) as the first part of our warm-up.
Still Off
My favorite cult leader predicted a specific date for Jesus's return yet again. It was supposed to happen today. That's at least 5 days I know of that David Pack has predicted Jesus will return. He's batting a solid 000. Why anyone still supports the hack is a mystery to me.
Evening Walk
We've overseeded our front yard and seeded our backyard. Not "overseeded" because after we started having our yard sprayed for weeks regularly, everything in the backyard died. Because it was all weeds.
This means, though, that our dear Clover is an inside dog for the next month or so as everything takes root and grows. So we take her on a lot more walks, which means we get to see lovely fall scenes like this.
Thoughts on Tomorrow
"I don't want to be recorded." I looked up and saw Thompson and thought at first she was joking, that she was sort of pretending to be a student. A sort of inside joke: "We both know that's coming." But I know her well enough to realize she doesn't have that kind of deftness. I don't think she even knows how to make a joke. I can't remember what I said -- I was standing by the computer, working to get everything ready for the class as they entered, and my attention was not focused on what she was doing.
"I don't want to be recorded," she said again, confirming what I'd suspected: she wasn't joking.
"Okay, we can talk about this in just a moment. I'm trying to get things ready for class." That's what I said; what I thought was, "What in the hell is she talking about? Is she serious? How does she function in the school? Does she not realize that she's recorded all the time? In stores. In homes possibly. Everywhere." I kept trying to get things going and again I hear it.
"I don't want to be recorded."
At this point, I was thinking that we'd have an issue about this in the future, but I was slowly realizing that she wanted me to comply then. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Let me turn that off," is what she was expecting to hear. She wasn't letting me know that she wanted this to be taken into consideration in the future. She wanted it then.
"Well, I'm sorry," I responded, still trying to get the materials ready for the next class, most of whom were in the room at that point.
By this time, she was getting noticeably upset. "I don't want to be recorded," she said again, at which point I almost said, "Jesus, lady -- you're as bad as the kids."
In the end, she said she was going to go to the library, and I could send some kids there. By this time, the class was spiraling out of control because I was dealing with a teacher acting like a four-year-old instead of applying the same routine I've used daily. Once I got everything under control, the phone rang. It was Allison in the front office.
"Mrs. Thompson won't be with you today," she began, and I thought, "Jesus -- I know this. You don't have to tell me she's in the library." Instead, she continued, "She's gone home."
I've been thinking on and off all weekend about tomorrow and what that might be like. I have no idea what Thompson is going to be like; I have no clue what she's going to say to me, to Davis, to Finley. She's not the most reasonable person I've ever met, and she's certainly not the sharpest person I've ever encountered, so I have this not-so-latent fear that it will be a disaster tomorrow.
Best-case scenario: I apologize and say I could have handled it better, and she says she was perhaps a little unreasonable. I volunteer to limit recording of the class in the future, and she suggests that it shouldn't be too big of a deal, that it's something she could get used to. I don't see that kind of introspection in the woman, though, so I doubt that will happen.
Worst-case scenario 1: she quits, and the whole Special Ed program gets thrown into disarray. Four teachers (Haenlein, Hinner, presumably Woodard, and I) would all lose our inclusion teacher, and I have no idea the legal repercussions of that. Truth be told, the woman is more of a hindrance than help in class with her continual tendency to begin talking to students privately while I'm addressing the whole class. (Bringing that up will now be tiresome.) So not having her in class would not be a problem for me at all. But there's the legal issue with compliance for the IEP.
Worst-case scenario 2: she becomes passively-aggressively disruptive in class. I don't know if that is realistic: she doesn't seem like she's sharp enough to pull that off, truth be told.
Worst-case scenario 3: I get in trouble for what happened. That's unlikely: I've already spoken to Davis about it, and her reaction reassured me, as did Haenlein's and Rutzer's.
What will actually happen will likely be something I've not foreseen, something completely unexpected. And I'll deal with it like an adult.
International Festival 2022
Friday
Some days are so weird, so unexpected, so strange, so off-kilter that when everything finally calms down, when everything finally slows enough that you can take stock of the day, that you can take a breath and exhale slowly, that you can reflect on the oddities of the last 14 hours -- those days reach that celestial moment, and you can only smile and ask, "What the hell was that?"
The Scout
