Now hear this!!

OMG,  it turns out that Karen the Monitor is hard of hearing and needs someone to repeat questions right in her ear before she can answer them.    Could it be that only a person who can't hear would agree to ride a school bus full of middle schoolers.  I wonder who conducted her job interview.

Eat this----Not that

Teaching was my game, and I did it for a number of years---too many, as I look back.  During those years, I have seen many sad sights.  I have seen teachers break down in tears in the classroom, inappropriately rage at, threaten, or barter with disrepectful and aggressive students, and I have known quite a few young teachers to leave the profession, realizing that it was not to be  the career they had hoped for.  Personally, mostly when serving as a substitute teacher, I was met with negative student behaviors, out of the realm of ordinary expectations.  A seventh grade girl once walked out of the classroom I was subbing in  to report my behavior to her counselor when I told her to stop talking.  Another young boy, wanting to control the class, enlisted the aid of another student and threatened to tell the principal that I had made him the victim of sexual abuse. He told me he had successfully caused the firing of another teacher using the same ploy.  In truth, the other teacher had been removed from the classroom, ostensibly for other reasons.   An entire class (save for one student) conspired to tell me they had been excused for testing, and cut class that day.  A senior boy used the absence of his teacher to destroy her Shakespeare literature collection, and another senior high student used her absence  (and my presence) to steal valuable art supplies.  The worst occurrence was in the aftermath of my writing up a senior high student for misconduct, he, weighing about 200 lbs, deliberately threw a body block into my 90 lb. seventh grader  in gym class.  I was called to the office to be told my son had been knocked unconscious.  Oops, sorry. 
    My point is that the classroom, or any school venue, is no place for the weak of mind or body. I think every teacher has a share of horror stories; those suited to the job find ways to turn the negatives around, and make it a positive experience and a rewarding profession.  It's not an easy job; it usually takes a lot of work to become one of the good teachers.    If you're not prepared to do that work, you should find employment elsewhere.  There are jobs you can go to suffering from a headache, and your supervisor and  fellow employees will try to give you a little leeway, and lower their expectations.  No teacher, some who interact with up to 125 different students a day,  can reasonably expect  that type of consideration.  Jobs where you interact with students demand that you be proactive, and make clear what type of behavior will be tolerated and what will absolutely not be.  Teachers, assistant teachers, teacher aides are all charged with that  responsibility: to be in control of student behavior.  If you are not committed to that responsibility, you have no business collecting a paycheck.  I don't mean to imply that anyone can control everything---mistakes will be made and disasters will happen.  But if you are being paid to do a job,don't ignore what your task is.  At least try, or get out.
   (Go ahead, leave a comment.  I dare you.)     

The Last Word

If during a conversation, I pause a bit to find the right word, (yes, that happens sometimes), and the person I'm speaking with jumps in with a word, (yes, that sometimes happens too), that helpful person should know that the conversation is going to take even longer because though the suggested word may be an appropriate choice, there is no way I'm going to use that word.   I'll need to search my memory bank for another synonym, and that eats up valuable time, you know. 

Poor Karen

That school bus monitor episode in Rochester is disturbing on many levels, but I think the reason for so much sympathy and money rolling in is because so many people relate to it out of a sense of guilt for harboring similar sentiments, though not overtly acted upon.   The teens involved, spoiled and self-centered as they may be, are eerily reminescent of the youths in Golding's "Lord of the Flies."  If you recall the boys' savage killing of the sow, it is not much of a leap to a parallel with the aged and obese passive woman who was employed as a monitor.  The boys were tormenting her much the same as the wild and pack-led boys in the novel, who had  put aside any earlier civilities and thrust themselves into an energetic and depraved slaughter of the pig.  The Rochester teens even spoke of stabbing her in her huge stomach. Blood lust ruled.  Though they did not physically take her life they did everything possible to kill her spirit, and destroy her humanity.  If they were elsewhere, without (presumably) a bus driver, and a number of witnesses besides the camera, one can only dread what course the attack may have taken. 
       Henry Golding was illustrating a basic theme that evil lies in wait to overtake innocence, despite their having access to good.  The young stranded boys could have built an idyllic  life for themselves, but the savagery intrinsic to at first a few pretty much ended up corrupting the others, while  the few who resisted sacrificed their lives. 
      So it would seem that the Rochester teens were playing out the role of innocence corrupted by cruel savagery in their search for a suitable victim, one who appears helpless and an easy target.  But it's too simplistic to direct the blame against the teens alone.  There are too many other factors in play.  Apparently, the boy who held the camera had planned to submit the piece to Tosh.O, a disgustingly edgy show not suitable for anyone in their formative years.  The danger of viewing such is that it inures the viewer to horrendous events that, once committed to watching them, can only be perceived as funny.  The targets of the humor are often the old, the obese, the physically unattractive, the helpless, the unfortunate.  If the host and the producers of a quasi-successful TV show laugh at disgracing others, those who are fans find it funny too, once they are "groomed" by society to do so.  Howard Stern, now appearing as a humane and compassionate judge, of all things, built his career on a basis similar to Daniel Tosh's.  The Stern show regularly and disgustingly ridiculed those he chose as his targets, and he was considered a humorist, at first extreme, but later mainstream.  I guess you could say all comedians ridicule, or BULLY, their fellow human beings, where any point of difference or weakness is perceived.  And because we've all laughed at jokes about the unfortunate, though we knew we probably shouldn't have, that residual of guilt carries over to the extreme of death threats against the teens on the school bus.  We are free to deny our complicity because we know no cameras were rolling when we found the flaws of others worthy of contemptuous scorn.

       Karen herself:
             First of all, who employed her?   What were her duties?  Was she to monitor  behavior  so as to prevent the bullying of some students by others? How effective a monitor could she possibly have been when she was unable to take even a slight step to control the miscreants.  Even a 68-year-old, out-of-shape woman  could attempt to take names to report their obviously out of control behavior. One would hope that as part of her job, she would have had a cell phone so she could call to say she had a problem.  She could have told them that their behavior was wrong, that they should be ashamed of their behavior, that their parents were going to be very disappointed when they were informed.  Her whole persona indicated defeat and submission, food for the attackers.  Neither her demeanor nor her attire were conducive to demanding respect, and the only way she was going to get any modicum of respect from them was to demand it in no uncertain terms.
        Not to criticize her for being in that job, but did she really feel she could do that job?  Was she so desperate for money that she would voluntarily subject herself to such humiliation out of the need to make ends meet.  Did this happen on a regular basis or was it an isolated event?  The students seemed familiar with her, calling her by name.  Some of the parents seemed genuinely shocked that their kids would act this way; had she, or anyone else, ever contacted them before?   Was the School Board or whoever hired her aware of the conditions on the bus, and if not, why not?  Was Karen able to fulfill the conditions in her job description?  Where was the oversight?
     During the Cold War years, we regularly saw stories of elderly Russian women who were forced to clean the streets and pick up trash so they could support themselves.  The moral of it was that Russia treated its elderly population in a deplorable manner.  In my opinion, there would be more dignity in cleaning streets than in being the victim of ruthless and criminal behavior at the hands of teenagers.

Oh, Snap!

We know that crotchety old "Handyman on Call" Peter Hotton dispenses some invaluable advice to homeowners, but this week he outdid himself.  While advising a customer to glue a plate rail groove in a cabinet instead of cutting into the wood, which seems like sound advice, he commends himself for solving a similar problem with his own cabinet.  The new Royal Doulton plates were too large for the cabinet shelf.  So, genius-like he solved the problem:   he moved the plates down a shelf, where they fit nicely.  An unbelievable strategy!

C.S.I via SWAT

I learn something new every day.  When a SWAT team enters a home, they pull out every drawer and empty all cabinets of everything.  They leave dresser drawers on the floor, emptied of all their contents.  They remove drawers from the kitchen cabinets and empty the contents of the cabinets.  They take apart the furniture, and leave gaping holes in the couches and chairs.  They evidently are not in the habit of putting anything back either.  They don't even try to remove the scorch marks left on the floor from the flash bomb launched through the window.  You would wonder what they're looking for.

Bitter Truth

When I was in high school and  read George Orwell's "1984"  I felt suffocated by the thought of living in such a society, but I figured that by the time that year came, I would be 46 years old, and beyond caring about anything like that. Time seemed so endless then, and the future so far away.  When I was 27  my father died unexpectedly of a sudden heart attack.  He was retired by then, but pretty much the sole caretaker of his mother's sister, his Aunt Ella Keegan.  When Ella learned of his death, she mourned his passing, saying Charlie was such a good boy, and had always been so kind to her.  I remembered thinking how odd it was to hear my father, dead at 71 years of age,  referred to as a boy.
   Ella had over the years been plagued by an abdominal hernia, a condition which had caused her to be hospitalized for treatment whenever the hernia would protrude through her age-weakened abdominal wall.  So after my father's death, my mother and I would visit her during her hospitalizations.  She was in her 90's and would always be a patient in what seemed to be the elderly women's ward.  That ward was filled to overflowing with old ladies who were confined to bed.  When I, young and unencumbered, would walk down the hall, and pass by the open doorways, the pleas would start:   "Please, Miss, will you get a nurse for me?  No one answers when I press the call button.  Oh, girl, can you help me?  Can you get me a drink of water?  Can you come here?"  I sort of wanted to help them, but I didn't think I should, so I never did, other than saying hello, and maybe sometimes telling a nurse that a patient was calling.  It was obvious that the nurses were aware that the patients were calling for them, but for whatever reason, they largely ignored the calls.  It was the time before Alzheimer's diagnoses; their plight then was labeled senility.  Nothing to be done for those lonely old women on the verge of losing everything: life, mind, sanity.
    When I was in my teens, I couldn't even imagine my life at 46.  In my twenties, I could not relate to what my life would be as an old woman in a hospital room, a discarded life.
   But we do grow older and life does get colder, and the bitterness of it entered into my life a week or so ago, when I became a hospital patient for the first time in my life, other than when I gave birth to my children, which is a  different type of patient entirely. 
      So for probably the first time ever, I gave in, amidst utter misery, post-surgery as it happened, and pressed the call button, the purpose of which  is diligently pointed out and explained when admitted to a room.  Nothing happened, so 15 minutes later, I pressed again.  In another 15 or so minutes, an attendant of some sort responded and said she'd tell a nurse.  Again, no response.  I tried once more and a young "para-nurse" finally came, but only to say he'd tell a nurse.  She never showed up either.  Since my surgery had taken place in the evening and I didn't get back to my room until 10 PM or so, I realized it was the night shift.  Night shifts are traditionally understaffed, but beyond that, I believe there is a tacit understanding that patients are not to be catered to at night---they're supposed to be asleep.  I had a semi-realistic vision of myself, young and capable, walking down the hallway and looking in to see one of those old patients, alone, calling for help that never comes.

On Death and Dying

Mulling:   Would I rather meet my demise lying in a hospital or hospice bed with family and friends keeping that long, slow deathwatch, OR would I rather go down in a hail of bullets, maybe sprawled across the hood of my  faithful blue Taurus?  Decisions, decisions.

Please Petitions

Last night , I was at a meeting where Brian Premo, Carmelo Laquidara, and Christopher Maier all asked us to support their race for judge.  Not having been endorsed by the Rens. Co. Committee, they're down to the grassroots.

Declined!!

What to say when your urologist offers you a present on your birthday.
If it's a thing that looks like a short green leash with a hook on either end.

Hurt

What is sadder than those poor old people who have to depend on the staff at their health care provider offices to arrange their transportation home after their medical visits.  "Where's my ride?  How am I getting home?  I can't stand outside any longer.  Who's coming to pick me up?"   Kill me now.

Bad Things on TV

#3) Mother to son:  "Do you need your inhaler?"
#2) Grandfather to grandaughter:  "Come on over and see my new tennis racket."
#1) Senator to the public:   "Let's get some raisins in the Greek yogurt."

Drat!

I just heard Joan Rivers has a new book, "I Hate Everybody."   That's the title of my book; she just beat me to the publisher's.

Irony , sort of

In a strange twist of circumstance, the boyfriend of a girl from one of the first families I worked with is now re-considering his goal of becoming a police officer, at least in the city he lives in, because there is too much crime in the city, citing home invasions, armed robbery, etc.  Somehow, I feel a little abashed. 

Thrillseeking Danger

Pish Tush!  If Nik Wallenda had  wanted to put on a true life-risking performance, he should have been drinking a 20 ounce sugary drink while walking that tightwire.  Then if disaster ensued, Mayor Bloomberg would not feel responsible for the medical bills.

Modern Medicine

What makes you stronger doesn't kill you.  The surgical schedule included cystoscopy, left retrograde pyelography, bilateral retrograde pyelography, ureteroscopy, possible laser lithotripsy and/or stone basketing, and stent insertion.  Cytoscope instruments include the cytoscope, a #22-French cone tipped ureteral cathether, contrast media, fluoroscope,  0.035 sensor tip guidewire, semi-rigid short mini-ureteroscope,  a Segura basket, safety guidewire, #6-French left ureteral stent, a pusher, aspirator,  and a sleeve releaser.  And after the baling wire and the fish hooks are removed, the patient will feel much better. 

Moreover

I've always wondered what kind of person goes into training so as to be able to detect online stalkers of underage children.  Who devises the training, how are they recruited, and why do they want that job.  Surely there must be psychological assessments involved somewhere along the way, and how are the proper persons evaluated?  Are they read porn,shown pictures, and had their reactions rated on a scale of sexual non-excitement.  Who's to judge the qualified----maybe a member of the clergy, a trusted Boy Scout leader, a Senator, a highly respected football coach?  Or a noted actor, an ex-governor, or any member of an existent police force not inclined to email pictures of his penis?  And once a person is installed in the job and trolling the internet for the perps, hoping to make them his victims, how long could that person remain normal in the social sense.  An adult male, or female, pretending to be a nubile youth talking dirty all day.  Could that person think that they have the best job in the world? 

Be very afraid....

....and suspicious if someone wants to (1) mentor your problem teenager, (2) care for your aging loved ones, (3) hitchhike across the country to document human kindness.  Chances are that anyone who wants to take on such a task is a pervert, insane, or an insane pervert.

Say what?

Did I just hear our President say he didn't want to argue with that reporter?  If I were that reporter, I'd be so p#*ssed off.  What a putdown!

GENERALLY GENERAL

I know a General is an important leader, but the  word general in lower case seems much more bland and benign, so when they told me I was having it, I had no fear or even much respect  for General Anesthesia.  I was to be proven  wrong on that score.  When I had Cystoscopy Procedure No.1 last month, the anesthesiologist consulted with me about my apprehensions, and said he would make me comfortable and safe.  He was true to his word; I woke up feeling good, really good.  I can't explain the feeling, but it was a beautiful thing.  So much so, that I actually was kind of looking forward to it during this week's Cystoscopy Procedure No. 2 .
    So when, preparing to be sedated, I saw the anestheologist, a woman this time, and one highly recommended by the attending nurse, begin to place a mask over my face, I said that I didn't have that the last time.  I heard someone say, "Well, you are this time."   Of course, I calmly asked, "WHY???"   "Because," the nurse patiently (or so I had thought) explained, "This time you are having general anesthesia."  Another WHY THE DIFFERENCE?" from me brought her  explanation:   "The doctor may  possibly have to perform a laser lithotripsy, and with that type of surgery, he needs the patient to be completely paralyzed so there is no danger of even slight movement that could result in disaster from a tear or penetration  of  an organ."   When I heard the word, making certain, "Did you say PARALYZED????", I probably should have known there would be no beautifully sublime awakening this time. She continued, "And because you'll be paralyzed, that is why we're going to insert a breathing tube."  "OMG, I'm not going to be able to BREATHE!"    From  the moment I  saw the mask and heard the word paralyzed, and found out I wasn't going to be able to breathe,   I relinquished any thought of waking up to something beautiful, instead  hoping to wake up to anything at all, beautiful or not.  And it was not.
    At first,  I was attempting to assemble some semblance of sanity and presence by trying to put in order the pieces of an oppressive looking assemblage of open-fronted wooden cartons and crateboards, some wire-fronted, all of them brown with black bindings.  They were piled teeteringly   high and deep, perilously large and foreboding,  on  the left side of a decrepit looking warehouse-style building.  To keep them upright so that I could find my own way out, and secure the safety of many others, I had to arrange  them on pallets into columns and other configurations, and I had to do it in the style used to solve crossword puzzles.  I was having some success in a frantic kind of way, when I heard what must have been the last part of the kindly nurse's explanation: "You could really do some damage to yourself if, not paralyzed, you moved even only slightly at an opportune time and something was punctured."  I could only just barely respond, "An inopportune time."   I heard her repeat, "Yes, inopportune,"  
    I awoke to the panel of judges in the front of the recovery room.  Naturally there were 3 of them all sitting behind what looked like a judging desk.  None of them had any connection to me at the moment.  The urology surgeon was writing his copious notes, head down and diligently writing what would turn out to be the most complete medical report I'd ever seen.  The receptionist/secretary/department coordinator woman was dressed in black and conducting business.  (I heard her admire the shoes of a woman passing her desk.)  The third person was the comforting and compassionate nurse who had been caring for me pre-surgically. She was the most recent one to join the others at the desk, and presently was making a phone call. I heard part of her telephone conversation:  "I just spent the worst hour of my life."   I  had thought her  a friendly, optimistic person and wondered what hour that could have been.   As my head cleared,  a thought  came to me, but no, she couldn't have meant that, could she have?
    
   

Flip That Bird

Until today, I have looked up to penguins as the epitome of morality.  Why did someone find it necessary to release archival data to the contrary.  My hope for species and subspecies is  irrevocably shattered.

The Graduates

Best advice for the class of 2012:   "Be kind to your knees; you will miss them when they're gone."

I-I kn-kn-new i-it

America may have talent, but evidently not for detecting fraud.  Case in point:  the stuttering war-hero country singer.  Assuming the producers vetted the biographies of the contestants, viewers could not know that his military injuries were fabricated, but anyone could tell that the stuttering was not real.  He belongs in the same mental facility as the Tourette teens.

Urge to Kill

So quaint to remember, but when I was a child and worked in Sara's store, I read everything that was in the store.  Sometimes I would sit there for hours at a time, with few customers, and nothing to do but read all the magazines and newspapers that were sold in the store.  I think the two popular tabloids were "The Daily News" and "The Daily Mirror," and, working in the store seven days a week, I faithfully read them.   One paper, I think "The Daily News," carried 2  reader-submitted anecdotal short pieces;  one was titled "My Most Embarrassing Moments,"  such as a woman wearing the belt of her dress inside out with the size printed on the belt, for all the world to see, for heaven's sake.  The horror!  The other was "Pet Peeves," subtitled "The Urge to Kill,"  which dealt with episodes of being teed off and frustrated by the words or deeds of others.  I suppose now a column like that would be so wrong, on so many levels.
       I remembered that the other night watching David Letterman who was on a rant, blathering that although he knew language was and should be constantly evolving, that there was one addition to the language he absolutely abhorred.  After sufficient buildup, he revealed that the object of his anathema was the use of the word "bromance."  It drove him crazy and he wished to harm somebody every time he heard or saw the word.  His reaction seemed a little over the top, but then I realized that probably everybody has some pet language  usage peeve that brings out the urge to kill.  I know what triggers that flush of anger in me, even when I least expect to embrace the desire to do bodily harm.
      What  elicits  the red curtain of rage  is whenever someone says to me, "I don't want to argue with you."  That is wrong on so many levels:  First, it is an argumentative statement, meaning they are throwing down the gauntlet of argument, and not only denying what they are doing, but at the same time allowing no counter to their challenge.  They feign an air of superiority, with the implication they are above the lowly act of argument, which you by implication, are into, like the low-class being you are.  Kind of like the old "Have you stopped beating your wife" question.  Try to respond and you are doomed.  By default, any response means you, unlike the speaker, want to argue.   The initial point of contention is now subsumed by the issue of who wants to argue.  And if you pay attention, you will be surprised by how many people say this, and who those people are.  ...I'm going to bed now.....
     
  

Dear deer blanket

Andrew just recently discovered the Deer Blanket.  Enfolding himself in its warmth and softness, he says, "This came from Dorothy's house, didn't it." 
  But, no, it didn't.  Even though the blanket still looks and feels like new, this  blanket has been in the household for almost 40 years. An original "biederlack" throw made in West Germany of Acrilan, the label is still attached and somewhere in the house is a red plastic ID tag that came with it. The throw measures about 36 by 52 inches, is cream colored with full outlines of 2 brown deer.  It was a great wrap for those chilly evenings while watching TV.  But soon Child #1 appropiated it for her naptime, and within a year or so, there was serious sibling rivalry over the deer blanket, and who "had it first."  So of course there was an investment in another similar blanket, at least 2 more, one of them with a unicorn in blue tones: another may have been a bear.  By then, the biederlack brand had been copied, with varying results of comfort, washability, etc.  The original and impostor blankets wended their various ways to colleges, on trips, vacations, some of them never finding their way back home.  But for some reason, the one that remains in the house is the Deer Blanket, and is, remarkably, as soft and comfy as ever. 
   And so Dear Andrew, though the blanket may appear to be a recent purchase, by someone with a taste for fine things, this old deer blanket is the very one your mother used to cuddle up in for a peaceful nap, after she ripped it away from her little brother.