Oh, the Drama !

Oct 5 I fly out to Tacoma to meet my long lost sister. I did email our mom and offer to rent a car and get her so they can meet finally. Our dad won't drive her. He's so lazy. Or I offered that I could rent a car and we could drive to Yakima and meet her at Burger King if she doesn't want anyone to see our brother in law's car torn apart on her front lawn, which I'm aware it is right now. Now mom has told our other sister who lives with her that she thinks I'm just going to meet our sister in Tacoma so I can compare some similar medical problems both our sons have, and that she doesn’t want to interfere. Interfere? Don’t you think if someone does a 10 year birth mother search they'd like to meet in person ? Am I wrong for even trying to arrange that? Maybe I should have just left it at me flying out , spending 2 quiet days with my new sister and then leaving, without all the greater psychotic family B.S.

Monday morning I came to work, checked my email, and foud a note from relatives in Bergen telling me that grandma's cousin's husband died that morning. I wrote back to say how kind they were to visit us when I was a child, and how kind they were to allow me to visit them in Bergen when I was in college.

Then that same afternoon I got an excellent review at work and got a 13% raise! There is no decimal in that number! Thirteen percent! I never even knew there was such a thing as a 13% raise. I remember when Allina's cap was 2% one year. I think that was the year I quit, actually. I told my 13 year old daughter I'm going to buy a new car, a new back fence, fix the stain on the living room ceiling, an iPod, a trip to Los Angeles, a Nintendo Wii and a piano. Anything left over after that, she can go to college.

Tuesday morning, my husband and I went to a parents-only, pre-evaluation meeting at a child psychologist office in Minneapolis. They now have our written permission to ask questions to people at his school and meet with him personally after that. I knew we were doing the right thing, but it felt bad and I came out feeling very discouraged, after spending an entire hour just listing our 8 year old son's repetative behaviors and social problems, and even disagreeing with my own husband, in front of the lady, what our own observations were and what our goals for him are! I want to isolate the behaviors causing the problems, find some age appropriate way of presenting that information to him and working with him to create ways for him to manage his own behavior. He's not disabled and he's not stupid. But he's tall for his age and weighs 85 pounds already. I can't rely on just picking him up while he's sobbing and moving him to bed or the car or another room when he refuses to go, and is crying so hard he can't even hear me, for much longer. My husband wants him to have a medical diagnosis , drugs, and for the school to have to create an individual education plan based on his medical diagnosis. What? Since when does an 8 year old who is 2 to 3 years ahead of his age group in math and reading need an IEP ?

This morning I got an instant message from my younger sister who lives with our parents. She told me that my other younger sister, disabled by mental illness, but currently living in an apartment somewhere, had her apartment door kicked in and held at knifepoint for some amount of time,this week, and is now sleeping on my parents' couch! Geez, does it just never end ?

Today we got the news that although there are only 5 people in our department, and we stagger our hours to cover the phones from 6 am until 6 pm already, our corporate headquarters insists we need now at least one person to cover the phones until 7 pm also, due to clients we are getting, in California, on Pacific Time! Each of us is just going to put in one hour of over time one night of the week, and can even work that extra hour from home, with our laptops, and our calls being routed to our home phone or cell phone. So my night is Monday. Tuesdays my son has swimming. I'm not teaching English at the moment, but if the school district does eventually call me in, I usually get assigned to Tuesday nights. I have been for the past several years. Wednesday my daughter has guitar, and Thursdays my daughter sometimes has fencing or either of my chidlren may Scouts, depending on what week it is. And someone else in the department immediately requested Fridays just to make the point that she has no personal life. So Mondays it is. I'll take my laptop and cell phone home and set up for that one last hour from there. Too bad we're salaried and can't get paid extra for over time. But under the "13%" circumstances, I just can't bring myself to complain. It still beats 16 to 30 evening and week end hours at Sam's Club like I did for the entire year of 2002!

We've been enjoying our Netflix subscription at home. Last week and this week our kids rented two different HomeStarRunner cartoon dvd's and we've been enjoying Stong Bad Emails and Teen Girl Squad cartoons. And last week I got John Waters' "Cry Baby" . I meant to watch it while my kids were in bed, but they got up and watched quite a lot of it with me. With the exception of one exessively comical group make out party scene, and some language, it wasn’t really anything they couldn't see and they seemed to enjoy it.

Did I mention I got a 13% raise?