Three long ass days
Bruddah, it's been a long time since I've posted, but I can unequivocably say that it wasn't out of laziness. I've been motherfuckin' busy these past two weeks, and especially the last few days. First of all, I just finished arguing with MB, one of my kids in the group home. It's 4 in the morning, and this kid is up trying to start shit up. Dude had the nerve to try to get back his gameboy when he knows it was "hotboxed" (restircted from using it) for a week because of his negative behavior. Then when I gave him a timeout direction, he muttered "You're lucky I don't beat you up and make you bloody." That shit infuriated me, so I'm going to restrict him from visiting his Grandma tomorrow. I've been driving his ass to Oakland every weekend, too, after getting off my shift in the morning. It's the only way he'll learn not to be an asshole. Last week, he got up during his church service and started cussing everyone out and throwing a tantrum. So now, his Grandmother and the counselors and therapist have worked out a plan to only reward him with a home visit if he's not acting a fool.
MS has been off the hook this whole week. He was in the Quiet Room 4 out of the last 5 days. Yesterday night, I started my shift and the day staff was restraining his ass right outside the Quiet Room. He was assaultive towards a staff member, and she immediately put him in a corner wall restraint. He was resisting for nearly thirty minutes, while screaming and crying out. But the staff member couldn't release the restraint until he was relatively calm. I was there to ensure that the restraint was safe and not injuring either party. The kid would scream bloody murder, and then start laughing out loud and saying he was just kidding. What a butt plug.
Alright, enough group home stuff. Yada, yada, yada, the kids are tough, they've had hard lives, they kick, spit, and bite. If you've read my posts before, this is all I fuckin' write about! Jesus, it'd be nice if I had a little more excitement in my life. These past two weeks, it's been work, sleep, work, and sometimes no sleep, like the past three days.
I've been wearing the same clothes for the past three days, because I haven't had time to shower up. If I'm not working, I'm sleeping, or fucking around with the dogs, or chillin' with the wifey. But even quality time w/ my baby has been extremely limited this weekend. Friday, I worked at Earth Island, and I taught/observed a lesson on the 4 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rot). We went to this school off Fruitvale in Oakland, and did a community clean-up. A class of 30 students picked up three full bags of garbage in less than 45 minutes just walking around the perimeter of the school. We mostly found plastic bags, lollipop sticks, broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, and then one of the students found the inevitable outside an apartment building: a condom. The kids gathered all around it, and no one knew what it was. Until one of the kids said, "You know what it is" to another kid. Yeah, right kid. For all you know it was a water balloon. I'm glad none of the 4th graders picked it up. I was diggin' on the teacher because she was this cute, young, half-white, half-Latina (I think). She told me that she is going to take the LSAT (for law school) the day after, which means she's probably going to get away from teaching. Too bad....if my elementary school teacher looked like her, I would have paid more attention in class!
Friday evening, I picked up a ton of books and stationary from home that Jo wanted to sell at the Garage Sale. Jo's been cleaning up the house so much (with the great help of her friend, AC), like she's been a 5th hurricane descending off the shores of Florida. Hurricane Jo. I'm really grateful for all that she's done the past couple of weeks. And she's been making frequent trips to the Davis Street Transfer station to drop off recycling. Awwww, a woman after my own heart (I'm a big tree hugger if you didn't know; you know what they say....more trees, less Bush!) I've been labeled the Recycle Nazi in our household (which only consists of me, Jo, and our three pups), and Jo's been the lone Jew in the concentration camp, sort of speak. Nein! Fraulein, the paper goes here and the plastic goes there! Prepare to be shot. Anyhoo, I dropped off the books and stuff at Jo's parent's house because they were having a garage sale in the morning. Jo, Noel, Arlene, and Brady hung out at the sale all day.
Then, I went to the David's house to pick up Mari-Ela's rabbit. I know what you're thinking...dude, you already have three dogs, and you want a rabbit? Who the fuck are you? Noah? Are you building a friggin' ark? Eventually I would love to have a menagerie in the house, but right now, our three dogs are more than enough. Mari-Ela, a family friend and basically my cuz, has to give up her rabbit. She never named her, but always called her "booger". She was gonna drop her off at the shelter, if no one took her in. She posted on Friendster. The reason she had to give her up is because she's moving to Madison, Wisconsin to take an anchor/reporter job at the ABC affiliate. Wow! Good for her. She's very pretty and well-spoken. It's probably gonna be hard for her because her bf, another family friend and practical cow-sin of mine, lives in LA. It was sorta gross when I found out they were going out with one another because we all grew up together since we were 7 years old. To make a long story short, my co-worker, Ket has been looking for a rabbit, and tada! It's kismic. Then, I dropped by my mom and pop's house. They fed me turbo chicken (chicken cooked in a turbo convection oven; I grew up on that shit), and I dropped off some blank CD's that my mom was asking for.
Saturday morning, I drive little punkass MB to his Grandma's house. He was actually very polite and obedient, which I was very thankful for. Then I go directly to my other job, because I'm in charge of staffing a booth at this Festival in Berkeley. No shower, no change of clothes since Friday morning. I know, it's friggin' nasty, but I don't care. The festival was cool. Very mellow vibe because it was a Watershed Festival of Poetry. So it drew a bunch of fellow tree-huggers, hippies, and poets. In fact, one of my favorite poets, Larry Ferlinghetti, was there and recited a poem about Watershed people. For those of you who don't hug redwoods, a watershed is a region where water "sheds" off the land and goes into creeks, then the bay, and into the ocean. We are all connected through our watersheds, and it's important that we keep them healthy, clean, and vibrant. Ferlinghetti was a contemporary of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and beatniks of the 50's and 60's. He also owns and runs CityLights bookstore in North Beach, which is a historical landmark. There were also some modern interpretive dances, which gave me a chuckle or two. Some of that hippie shit is funny as hell. The best poem of the day, in my estimation, was one written by a young nine-year old poet named Allen Qui. He said it so gracefully that the organizer of the event, Robert Hass, asked him to read it again. Here it is:
The Woods are Ancient by Alan Qui
The Woods are ancient relics of the past
Mist blankets the Redwoods to the last
I wonder what the mighty ones once did see
Gold miners? Dinosaurs? The Cherokee?
The mist is cold and damp on my hand
Birds sing, a fox peeps
One thins is sure though as ferns do rustle
The forest never sleeps
Later on, the same kid went to our booth and looked for terrestrial invertebrates in our worm compost bin. Then he petted booger for a godd ten minutes. Booger liked all the attention. He also liked just romping around the grass near our table. I was surprised that she did not run away. Other rabiit-lovers came by and said the same thing. Even though I had her for only a day, I guess she's already attached to me.
I started hitting the wall at around 2pm. I hadn't slept since Thursday night, so sitting around, watching hippies dance and do yoga started to become taxing. If it wasn't for the constant stream of kids around the compost bin and playing with booger (no, not their own boogers...the rabbit, dork), I would have passed out right then and there. Luckily, Sheela and Tony came by and brought their chihuahuas, Xoichi and Lolita. They had never seen a rabbit before, so they were very curious. The rabbit was bigger than either one of them! They also watched the booth while I got the truck, so I could break down the booth.
So I go home at around 7pm, and I just found out that the Oakland A's lost their bid for the playoffs, and the Giants are hanging on by a thread. That sucks. I play with the dogs for a bit, and then I go right to sleep. 10pm rolls around, and it's time to go to work....again. Finally, I come in to work, and there are no kids in the Quiet Room! Yippee!!!! Watched the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. Ben Affleck is hosting, and his self-deprecating humor is getting a little old. He's not that good of an actor, but he can definitely make fun of himself. His James Carville bit and Alec Baldwin's guess appearance was pretty funny though. I remember a skit he once did way back when that show on Fox was popular, "Who wants to marry a millionaire?" In this new show titled "Who wants to make out with a dude in the back of an old Chevy?" or something to that effect, Ben Affleck was the dude in the Chevy, and unwitting male audience members were the contestants. Everytime a contestant got an answer to a trivia question wrong, they would be one step closer to having to get in this beat-up old Chevy and having to make out with BA, who was dressed up in tattered flannel, sporting missing teeth, and an "I love Mom" tattoo. BA was hamming it up, too...."Yahoo! Boy, you're mouth sure does look pretty." An obvious homage to the movie, Deliverance.
So here I am now, writing in my blog at 5 in the morning, and waiting for the sun to come up. I'll be driving buttplug MB to his church again later in the morning, going to Jo's mom and dad's house to help with the garage sale, and eventually going to dreamland once everything's done and everyone's satisfied.
MS has been off the hook this whole week. He was in the Quiet Room 4 out of the last 5 days. Yesterday night, I started my shift and the day staff was restraining his ass right outside the Quiet Room. He was assaultive towards a staff member, and she immediately put him in a corner wall restraint. He was resisting for nearly thirty minutes, while screaming and crying out. But the staff member couldn't release the restraint until he was relatively calm. I was there to ensure that the restraint was safe and not injuring either party. The kid would scream bloody murder, and then start laughing out loud and saying he was just kidding. What a butt plug.
Alright, enough group home stuff. Yada, yada, yada, the kids are tough, they've had hard lives, they kick, spit, and bite. If you've read my posts before, this is all I fuckin' write about! Jesus, it'd be nice if I had a little more excitement in my life. These past two weeks, it's been work, sleep, work, and sometimes no sleep, like the past three days.
I've been wearing the same clothes for the past three days, because I haven't had time to shower up. If I'm not working, I'm sleeping, or fucking around with the dogs, or chillin' with the wifey. But even quality time w/ my baby has been extremely limited this weekend. Friday, I worked at Earth Island, and I taught/observed a lesson on the 4 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rot). We went to this school off Fruitvale in Oakland, and did a community clean-up. A class of 30 students picked up three full bags of garbage in less than 45 minutes just walking around the perimeter of the school. We mostly found plastic bags, lollipop sticks, broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, and then one of the students found the inevitable outside an apartment building: a condom. The kids gathered all around it, and no one knew what it was. Until one of the kids said, "You know what it is" to another kid. Yeah, right kid. For all you know it was a water balloon. I'm glad none of the 4th graders picked it up. I was diggin' on the teacher because she was this cute, young, half-white, half-Latina (I think). She told me that she is going to take the LSAT (for law school) the day after, which means she's probably going to get away from teaching. Too bad....if my elementary school teacher looked like her, I would have paid more attention in class!
Friday evening, I picked up a ton of books and stationary from home that Jo wanted to sell at the Garage Sale. Jo's been cleaning up the house so much (with the great help of her friend, AC), like she's been a 5th hurricane descending off the shores of Florida. Hurricane Jo. I'm really grateful for all that she's done the past couple of weeks. And she's been making frequent trips to the Davis Street Transfer station to drop off recycling. Awwww, a woman after my own heart (I'm a big tree hugger if you didn't know; you know what they say....more trees, less Bush!) I've been labeled the Recycle Nazi in our household (which only consists of me, Jo, and our three pups), and Jo's been the lone Jew in the concentration camp, sort of speak. Nein! Fraulein, the paper goes here and the plastic goes there! Prepare to be shot. Anyhoo, I dropped off the books and stuff at Jo's parent's house because they were having a garage sale in the morning. Jo, Noel, Arlene, and Brady hung out at the sale all day.
Then, I went to the David's house to pick up Mari-Ela's rabbit. I know what you're thinking...dude, you already have three dogs, and you want a rabbit? Who the fuck are you? Noah? Are you building a friggin' ark? Eventually I would love to have a menagerie in the house, but right now, our three dogs are more than enough. Mari-Ela, a family friend and basically my cuz, has to give up her rabbit. She never named her, but always called her "booger". She was gonna drop her off at the shelter, if no one took her in. She posted on Friendster. The reason she had to give her up is because she's moving to Madison, Wisconsin to take an anchor/reporter job at the ABC affiliate. Wow! Good for her. She's very pretty and well-spoken. It's probably gonna be hard for her because her bf, another family friend and practical cow-sin of mine, lives in LA. It was sorta gross when I found out they were going out with one another because we all grew up together since we were 7 years old. To make a long story short, my co-worker, Ket has been looking for a rabbit, and tada! It's kismic. Then, I dropped by my mom and pop's house. They fed me turbo chicken (chicken cooked in a turbo convection oven; I grew up on that shit), and I dropped off some blank CD's that my mom was asking for.
Saturday morning, I drive little punkass MB to his Grandma's house. He was actually very polite and obedient, which I was very thankful for. Then I go directly to my other job, because I'm in charge of staffing a booth at this Festival in Berkeley. No shower, no change of clothes since Friday morning. I know, it's friggin' nasty, but I don't care. The festival was cool. Very mellow vibe because it was a Watershed Festival of Poetry. So it drew a bunch of fellow tree-huggers, hippies, and poets. In fact, one of my favorite poets, Larry Ferlinghetti, was there and recited a poem about Watershed people. For those of you who don't hug redwoods, a watershed is a region where water "sheds" off the land and goes into creeks, then the bay, and into the ocean. We are all connected through our watersheds, and it's important that we keep them healthy, clean, and vibrant. Ferlinghetti was a contemporary of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and beatniks of the 50's and 60's. He also owns and runs CityLights bookstore in North Beach, which is a historical landmark. There were also some modern interpretive dances, which gave me a chuckle or two. Some of that hippie shit is funny as hell. The best poem of the day, in my estimation, was one written by a young nine-year old poet named Allen Qui. He said it so gracefully that the organizer of the event, Robert Hass, asked him to read it again. Here it is:
The Woods are Ancient by Alan Qui
The Woods are ancient relics of the past
Mist blankets the Redwoods to the last
I wonder what the mighty ones once did see
Gold miners? Dinosaurs? The Cherokee?
The mist is cold and damp on my hand
Birds sing, a fox peeps
One thins is sure though as ferns do rustle
The forest never sleeps
Later on, the same kid went to our booth and looked for terrestrial invertebrates in our worm compost bin. Then he petted booger for a godd ten minutes. Booger liked all the attention. He also liked just romping around the grass near our table. I was surprised that she did not run away. Other rabiit-lovers came by and said the same thing. Even though I had her for only a day, I guess she's already attached to me.
I started hitting the wall at around 2pm. I hadn't slept since Thursday night, so sitting around, watching hippies dance and do yoga started to become taxing. If it wasn't for the constant stream of kids around the compost bin and playing with booger (no, not their own boogers...the rabbit, dork), I would have passed out right then and there. Luckily, Sheela and Tony came by and brought their chihuahuas, Xoichi and Lolita. They had never seen a rabbit before, so they were very curious. The rabbit was bigger than either one of them! They also watched the booth while I got the truck, so I could break down the booth.
So I go home at around 7pm, and I just found out that the Oakland A's lost their bid for the playoffs, and the Giants are hanging on by a thread. That sucks. I play with the dogs for a bit, and then I go right to sleep. 10pm rolls around, and it's time to go to work....again. Finally, I come in to work, and there are no kids in the Quiet Room! Yippee!!!! Watched the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. Ben Affleck is hosting, and his self-deprecating humor is getting a little old. He's not that good of an actor, but he can definitely make fun of himself. His James Carville bit and Alec Baldwin's guess appearance was pretty funny though. I remember a skit he once did way back when that show on Fox was popular, "Who wants to marry a millionaire?" In this new show titled "Who wants to make out with a dude in the back of an old Chevy?" or something to that effect, Ben Affleck was the dude in the Chevy, and unwitting male audience members were the contestants. Everytime a contestant got an answer to a trivia question wrong, they would be one step closer to having to get in this beat-up old Chevy and having to make out with BA, who was dressed up in tattered flannel, sporting missing teeth, and an "I love Mom" tattoo. BA was hamming it up, too...."Yahoo! Boy, you're mouth sure does look pretty." An obvious homage to the movie, Deliverance.
So here I am now, writing in my blog at 5 in the morning, and waiting for the sun to come up. I'll be driving buttplug MB to his church again later in the morning, going to Jo's mom and dad's house to help with the garage sale, and eventually going to dreamland once everything's done and everyone's satisfied.
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