Well, I’m home, and can finally rest after last night’s craziness (as related by sambear). I put him on a bus that was supposed to leave at 6:45, then headed across town to the orthodontist. My poor sweetie will be on and off the bus all day, arriving at our curiousmay9‘s side sometime this evening. This is our LAST experiment with Greyhound! I talked to him until his phone lost service south of Atlanta.
Since we were well over an hour early for the 8:45 appointment, we tried going by G’s old school to find out why she never received her report card. They were supposedly mailed out, but we never got one. The records have all been transferred to the middle school she won’t be attending. I spoke with Sam on the phone, and we decided that the best course of action will be for him to go to the middle school early next week to officially withdraw her and get her records to send back to California with her. That will help avoid any delays in getting those records to her new school.
We went on to the orthodontist’s office, arriving 45 minutes early. We went on in, and happily, they took Katie right back. She got her brackets on. She sees an oral surgeon on the 18th to have a couple more teeth extracted due to just having too many teeth to fit in her mouth, then she’ll get the wires on about a week after that. G slept through most of the visit snuggled up against me in the waiting room, which was sweet.
We went by Mom’s office to see her since we were on that side of town, and she really appreciated the surprise. I treated myself to a raspberry mocha at Starbucks to help me stay alert on the drive home. We stopped off at my school’s financial aid office since I’ve been trying to get hold of them for over a week. They’ve taken to just keeping the “we’re closed” message on the phones ALL the time, and the voice mailbox is full so you can’t leave a message. The email address that is given to contact them on their website bounces. The individual email addresses I’ve used just don’t get responses. So it was time to go to the office in person again.
Surprisingly, there were no ringing phones and there was no wait to speak to the useless receptionist—apparently, she’s just decided not to answer phones, period. Unfortunately, I found out that they have managed to screw things up so that the financial aid disbursement that was supposed to happen next week isn’t going to happen for at least another two weeks. This is Not Good, as we’d scheduled some important payments then. The money will be in my account at school by the 12th—they just won’t release it for several weeks after that for some stupid reason. Since I’m already registered for a full-time course load, all the charges for the semester are already on my account. There’s no legitimate reason for this unless they’re just enjoying collecting the interest for a few weeks.
I am trying to go through the VP in charge of their department again (as I had to last semester). There’s also the fact that it won’t happen until well after classes start, which means buying nearly $300 worth of textbooks is going to be very difficult!
Is there some sort of union rule against competence in staffers at that school? I’ve encountered exactly ONE admin person there who is worth a damn, and she’s the department secretary in my department. It’s almost a full-time job just to keep these people doing THEIR jobs!
Anyway, I took the girls to copperscale‘s house to visit for the afternoon. It’s pretty open-ended—I figure I’ll hear from them when it’s time to go get them.
I’m home, but I can’t really rest. I just cannot sleep well during the day despite getting no sleep last night. I’ve got a migraine now, but the caffeine cure didn’t work. So I’m just hurting and rather blah. It’s really good that the kids are elsewhere—they aren’t trying to be quiet. I really hate it when my health crap impacts them.
I ended up talking on the phone with Katie’s splendiferous Girl Scout leader, Katy, on the phone for quite a while, though. She just absolutely rocks! I learned about a way cool program the GS council is doing for homeschooled girls ages 7 and up this coming year. They have one full-day session a month at Camp Timber Ridge in either an environmental science program or an outdoor adventures program (I know which one Katie will want to do). The girls just have to be enrolled as Scouts (independently or with a troop) and it costs $70 per girl for the year ($10 each for seven sessions). They’re letting other kids in the girls’ families participate as tagalongs, which is really neat for homeschooling families.
I need to see about updating my First Aid certification in case it’s needed for any troop activities. I think the rest of my training is up to date, though I still need to finish the camping stuff. Katy asked if Sam and I would help out, though, and I just can’t see refusing. I think Sam will really be more useful to her than I will, and I figure he’ll be happy to finish up the training he started last year. They have 18 girls in their troop this year, so they need more adults on hand! I’d love to talk curiousmay9 and wordcandlemage into doing the training—they would absolutely ROCK as GS leaders.
I passed the typing test (ooo, big surprise) for the data entry work I mentioned to isarma and did the paperwork for their background check. I’m not entirely sure I want to do this—I’ve already had one serious RSI. Honestly, another job possibility a friend brought up last month would be better all around. Still, I felt like I would be irresponsible if I didn’t really check this thing out, though. It’s seasonal, so I should be able to do it here and there, and we cannot afford to pass up any legitimate income opportunities at the moment.
I already miss my man terribly. I want him to be there for curiousmay9 and regret that I can’t be with her as well, but I miss him!
There’s some possible health stuff going on for wordcandlemage that has me concerned, too. Everything is probably just fine, but I worry anyway. He’s family, and I’ll feel better when the test results are back next week (as he will, I’m sure).
I’m feeling really antisocial, though. I’m just drained. I’m tempted to completely pull in my horns and not talk to anyone I can avoid for the next few days. Maybe I just need some introvert recharge time. I’m definitely not going to ChocoLaté with the PolySE folks tonight.
Oh—Mom informed me today that one of Daddy’s brother-in-laws, my least favorite relative on that side of the family, is very likely to die in the next week or so. He has what started as lung cancer and spread because he 1) didn’t get it checked on soon, and 2) he refused to follow his doctor’s orders. She made it very, very clear that Daddy needs ALL of us kids to attend the funeral whenever it happens. I sang at the last funeral on that side of the family, since I’m pretty much the only singer they have around (they are not the musical part of my roots, obviously). Somehow, the thought of doing that if asked is much easier to contemplate than just going and hanging out without having a task. Since he wasn’t a church-goer, I figure it’s unlikely that they’ll have a church member on hand to do it, although I’m 100% sure that this will be a Baptist or Methodist funeral.
I don’t do hanging out without a task well. I don’t do mixing well. I have no interest in casual conversation with a bunch of people who neither understand nor approve of most of my life’s choices. I have no intention of hiding anything from them—which makes even the most casual conversation full of potential for difficulties.
One of my cousins on that side is a little viper, and she sent me an email last year after reading my website that seemed to be a threat to call my parents about the stuff that was there about paganism and polyamory. Um, so? It’s on my website, twit—I’m not trying to keep it a secret! I don’t know if she ever did, or not—I certainly didn’t hear about it if she did. But she likes to be the center of attention and stir up crap, so she might try some sort of stupidity at a family event. And yes, she is lacking in class and cluefulness enough to do something like that at a funeral.
Sam said something to me this morning when we were joking around, “I’ll never compete against you in the Redneck Olympics.” I’m not redneck, but I sure as hell know the “culture,” such as it is, better than he ever will. He has no accent because he largely learned to speak from watching excessive amounts of TV as a kid. I watched very little TV but had a first-row seat for extended family soap operas. Is it any wonder that my drama circuits are completely burned out?
