Malone Mayhem

Take Your Daughter To Work Days

A couple of weeks ago, Drama Girl's school closed for a couple of days so the teaching staff could attend a convention in Los Angeles.

Why can't I work for that school?

I digress.

Drama Girl decided she wanted to come to school with me. I was some what hesitant as I tend to get enough drama in the course of the day without her adding to more. But it seemed worth a shot to see if she would enjoy it and it meant she would not have to stay home alone all day.

I need not have worried. She did great and was a huge help. She read to the peeps and played with them. When the morning was over she hung around my room and never asked when she could leave.

It was a nice bonding time for us.

Please it was fun watching the embarrassment on her face when I made her Tooty-Tah with the rest of the class. 

She said she can't understand why she has to go to her school every day, she would rather go to preschool.

Wouldn't we all rather go to preschool?

Thanksgiving

So, living in the might Kcan of the great state of AK, means that we don't see family for the holidays.

So sad, really.

Not really.

We spent the day doing this:

 

Drama Girl and I watched the parade and then the dog show. (Teen Boy was sulking around the house somewhere.) Along about 6 p.m. we headed to the teen home to have dinner. We went there last year, too.

Does that make it a tradition?

I digress.

Anyway, there were a lot more kids in house there this year. Tattoo Man had spent the day at work cooking all day. That's his idea of a good time.

Wierd, I know.

We enjoyed a nice dinner with some of the staff's families and the kids. And then left.

The teen home kids have to do the cleaning up.

It was a nice day.

Honestly, I did feel homesick for a bit.

It's me again...

Shocked? Surprised? Amazed? You know you are.

It was a good day, and a bad day.

The good part is that Tattoo Man brought me lunch and ate with me and the peeps. He got to witness me getting to do such wonderful things as putting a boy peep in time out for the third time that day. (the kid is a brat, I have never had to do that until him.) He got a good laugh when the children spontaneously starting singing "Baby Beluga" and one of the boy peeps put his hands over his ears and said, "I really don't need that song going around and around in my head."

When he left he opened the door to the classroom just in time to witness one of the daycare girls sitting on the toilet. The look on his face was priceless! The concept of modesty and privacy is lost on preschoolers.

After school I walked over to meet Teen Boy for counseling. It is conveniently located next to where I work. We were meeting for a third session together. I had brought with me, per her instructions,  mementos of his childhood. This included scrapbooks, his favorite childhood picture book, school work, and even an ultrasound picture. The idea was to try and give Teen Boy some perspective on his life since he is convinced it has been awful.

His reaction was terrible and hurtful. He got very angry. The counselor told me she actually considered ending the session because of his evident hostility and the nerve of me actually "proving" how much he is loved.

Just for the record, I would like to point out that this "crap" as he calls it, has not been easy to keep up with. After leaving Georgia it was stored at TN mom and dad's house for a couple of years. They moved it with their things no less that three times. Since, it was been coming to Alaska piecemeal by mail, in suitcases, and in totes we have hauled to the airport on top of TN dad's car.

I digress.

He settled down and proceeded to tell me how miserable each birthday and trip had been.

*Sigh*

After the session, I stayed to talk with the counselor who acknowledges that Teen Boy is difficult to deal with and literally sucks all the energy out of you. She feels Teen Boy's anger is really towards his father and even his paternal grandfather. However, he cannot express it to his dad because his love is conditional - mine is not. I love him no matter what.

I know this is very private information. But quite frankly, it needs to come out. Even if someone reads it and gets angry. Well, too bad. It's the truth.

On that note, I've been thinking about why I haven't blogged in a while. Mainly, it has been a hard few months. Both professionally, and personally. It's hard not to write about the difficult lives my peeps are living. It feels fake to pretend like everything is fine, when it isn't.

So, I've decided that in the future, if it needs to be private for all four people who read this, I will set a password and leave a hint that you will all know so you can read the post without violating the peep's privacy by having it in a public forum.

Over and out.

Are y'all out there?

*knock knock knock*

*ahem*

*It's me again*

*You remember me, all four of you, right?

Here I am again. Hoping to pull myself back into favor and showing you all how I can blog consistently. I was on a sabatical for a few months, really, I wasn't being flakey. I swear.

It's been a touch fall for myself and those around me. School has been tough. I don't really know where to pick up, so I just will pick up like I've been blogging all along.

That's it for today. I will tell you more during the week.

 

Sarah, who's not plain and tall

I guess all four of you out there in blogland have been waiting with baited breath for me to comment on Sarah Palin being named John McCain's running mate.

I like Sarah. She's been a good governor so far. But on Friday morning I believe you could have knocked the entire population of Alaska over with a feather when we heard the news.

No one saw this coming.

Now I think she's a good governor, but would she make a good vice president? Probably not. She might 10 years down the road, but not right now.

Just thinking about her debating Joe Biden makes me cringe.

I would like to address a few things the media has been saying about her.

One of them is the bridge to nowhere which for those of you who don't know was a proposed bridge leading from our island to another island where the airport is located. An island where virtually no one lives.

Sarah Palin apparently flip-flopped on the bridge issue, first being for it, then against it.

Kcan does not need that bridge. Having to take a ferry to and from the airport is just part of the charm of our little town. Besides, the airport here doesn't subscribe to the two hour wait thing like big airports do. So there is always plenty of time to get to the other side.

Sarah has no political experience.

Hey, she was mayor of Wasilla and president of the PTA. Sheesh! What more do you people want?

Sarah returned to work three days after giving birth to a special needs child.

Would we even be debating whether this were right or wrong if she were a man?

Sarah really didn't give birth in the spring. The baby is her daughter's child.

Well that has now been disproven, because her 17-year-old daughter is now pregnant. I'm sure Sarah has a very nice wardrobe of maternity clothes to share with her.

Oh, then there's "troopergate." Supposedly Sarah dismissed the public safety commissioner in our state because he wouldn't fire the man (a state trooper) her sister was divorcing.

Supposedly the commissioner was not adequately recruiting troopers and dealing with alcohol issues in the villages.

Besides, the man should have fired Sarah's former brother in law. He had numerous violations of his position as a state trooper. Plus, he was supposedly beating Sarah's sister and also tasered his step son, Sarah's nephew.

We don't need state troopers like this.

I can't think of anything else right now. I know it sounds like I'm defending Sarah, and I am. It still doesn't mean I think she should be vice president.

As for me. When I go to the voting polls I'll being looking for the third box to check under the presidential nominees. The one that says, "None of the above."

Over and out.

The First Day of School

Don't look for pictures. I don't have any, and quite frankly, I was not inclined to take any. There was a time, really, when I always took pictures of the kids on the first day of school. But now, I think those days are over.

Teen Boy breezed out of the house so fast there was no way to stop him. Drama Girl, well, let's just say that the way she went to school dressed was somewhat, embarrassing. When I was a kid there was always a new outfit for the first day of school. Careful consideration of what one looked like on the first day was very important.

So you can say all you want that Drama Girl is just like me but not completely. Last night as I was running her shower (I think her first one in a week). I asked her what she planned to wear in the morning. She informed me in no uncertain terms that her "first day would be no different from her 76th day of school" and she could care less what she wore.

Alrighty then.

As to my first day, it was fantastic.

It's been a trying week. There are issues between the daycare and the preschool that are needing to be worked out in a "come to Jesus" meeting. But the director assured me that she would handle it and to ignore what the daycare director said to me in regards to my refusal to allow them to utilize my space and asking them to get their refrigerator out of my classroom. I'm following directives that I was given from the director of the program and I'm not just being a "biotch".

*sigh*

Nonetheless, the morning flew by and the preschool day was over in the blink of an eye.

I have 7 returning students and 3 new ones. However, tomorrow I'll add another new student and it won't be long before I'm up to fifteen.

UPDATED

*In the middle of writing my day just took a down turn. We received a box of clothes from Old Navy for Drama Girl. She took the jeans to try them on and they were one size too big. This took about 45 minutes for me to figure out as she threw them back into the box and preceded to keen and wail about how I think she is fat. So now she has no jeans and I will be having to ship them back and wait for a replacement set.

God help me.

Over and out.

My New Classroom

Today was the first day of the contract year for me. I started out the morning at a breakfast for everyone in the school district. Boooooooring! I only go for the free food, cause I'm easy that way.

Then I headed over to my new classroom that is not in a school but in the second story of an electric company here in town. I know, I need to take a picture.

I had already worked several days last week, and yesterday too. It seems like I have had to beg, borrow, and steal to get the things done that I have to do for the new site. Really, it seems like it is way beyond what I should be having to do. The good thing is that our program director has agreed to pay me for the days I worked. What if had been out of town like I was last year at this time? Nothing would have been ready for school to start on Thursday.

Anyway, perserverance pays off and today the whiteboard and cubbies were installed. The doorway nearly has a door in it (it was open and leading to the other part of the second story, which is a daycare), and they brought me trashcans and a filing cabinet.

There is only one hitch - I still don't have a phone, or Internet. How am I supposed to blog at work without Internet? Hee. Supposedly I will have it by Wednesday.

As to the phone, the program director sent me an e-mail (I check it from home), and said that I needed to give her the number. Just one problem, I don't have a phone (just the outlet) and nobody, I mean nobody, seems to know what the new phone number is.

Anyway, I'm feeling good enough about today's progress to plan an open house for my little peeps on Wednesday afternoon.

I'll try to remember my camera so you can see the place.

Over and out.

Ch...ch...ch...changes

As David Bowie said, "It's time to turn and face the strange...changes.

We are in that time of summer where we are looking at the end and preparing for the new school year. I've been working on my new classroom for the past three days and I could write a lot about it, but in another post.

Teen Boy went off to a day-long freshman orientation at Kayhi. Of course, being a person of few words meant that he told me virtually nothing about his day except that he had gotten his locker and left his schedule in it.

He'll be able to walk to school every day so I think that's pretty great, but he of course, is playing it cool and doesn't seem too worried about the first day of high school.

The changes aren't just here in Alaska either. I know my niece, College Girl, moved into her dorm at her university in a place in Kentucky. I'm sure she was way more excited than Teen Boy is about being a freshman.

Here's the strange part. College Girl going off to school is making me feel, well, old. You see, I remember when her mother left for college. I was 12 years old. Because her mother, heretofore known as JAD, was the oldest kid in the family it was a big, big deal.

I remember all the fraternity boys helping carry her boxes up to her room. I remember my father fretting endlessly that her stereo would get stolen from her room (it wasn't). I remember how teeny, tiny that dorm room was.

So really, it's just not possible that JAD's own child is going away to school. I mean it wasn't like College Girl was born to JAD when she was 16 or something. JAD was like 30 or something when College Girl was born.

Okay, I'm going to stop now. I feel really, really, really old.

Over and out.

Dip Netting

While reading the paper this weekend I noticed a sidebar announcing that there would be dip netting on Tuesday, the one past, so I of course, announced that we must participate in this unique Alaskan tradition.

Dip netting is where you are allowed to use a net to collect fish. A net only, not a fishing rod. There is usually a limit on how many can be caught. One must possess an Alaskan drivers license and a fishing permit. The limit on this dip netting would be four King Salmon and six Silver Salmon, per person. The time allowed would be from one to four p.m. Officials from the salmon hatchery are on hand to make sure no more is taken than allowed.

So, on Sunday Tattoo Man and I headed over to the Ketchikan Creek, which runs through city park, to stake out a place to get into the creek. We noted that there were certainly a lot of salmon in the creek. It had been years since Tattoo Man had dip netted and he noted that it's not as easy as it sounds. We decided to go ahead with our plans if not for the fish, then for the laughs we would get from watching people try to snag them with their nets.

Monday morning I woke up with a cold that kicked my butt most of the day so we decided that despite the fact that I felt better on Tuesday that Tattoo Man would dip net and I would watch and take pictures.

When we arrived at the stream we were surprised that there weren't as many people as we thought there would be. Tattoo Man did not have any hip waders, but most of the other people didn't either. So, armed with a borrowed net, he headed into the very cold water.

That's Tattoo Man to the right, heading out into the stream and losing all feeling in his toes. If you look carefully there is a type of fence running through the center of the creek. It is here that the salmon swimming upstream are stopped and forced to move to the edge of the creek on the left and into a chute that sends them into the hatchery.

The first fish was captured by a little boy of about nine. He gamely took it out of the net, placed it on a log, bashed it on the head a couple of times to kill it, hid it behind the log, and headed back out.

The next fish was caught by Tattoo Man, about 15 minutes after heading into the water. He was given the thumbs up by the man in the yellow jacket from the hatchery (in the picture). So he brought it back to shore. I'm not into fish bashing, so he stuck it in a garbage bag and we wrapped it up a bit so it could just suffocate (nice, eh?).

Tattoo Man headed back out but didn't get another fish. There were also humpies and dog salmon, which had to be thrown back. Later, he headed to another part of the stream where he was up to his neck in water, so we decided it was time to call it a day.

All in all it was a lot of fun.

It is at this point in my blog that I need to make a correction. In a previous post I stated that silvers are pretty much only for smoking, well, that's not true. They make good eating all the way around.

Over and out.

 

Picture "Catch"

Do you recognize this?

That's the Cornelia Marie from Discovery Channel's "The Deadliest Catch." It is in dry dock here in the mighty Kcan. This photo (not taken by me) was before it was hauled out of the water.

Apparently it caused quite a stir here in town. Cruise ship captains were pointing it out to passengers, float planes were buzzing it for a closer look, and boats were getting in too close to it. Soooo...

They covered up the name of the boat with a huge tarp. (Party poopers!)

Apparently the boat, which is normally anchored in Anchorage (that seems appropriate, get it "anchor...Anchorage", hee), is brought down to Kcan every two years by Captain Phil Harris to have maintenance done on it.

Captain Harris thinks Kcan is an awesome place, as do we (most of the time).

For those visiting the town and who want a "true" Deadliest Catch experience, they can take a boat tour on the Aleutian Ballard, which was in the first season, and watch the crew throw crab and shrimp pots. I've heard it's a great tour.

Over and out.