classroom rules

a facebook friend of mine just posted a very cute picture of her daughter, a teacher, holding up a poster with her classroom rules written on it. this scene is being repeated all over the country as schools swing back into gear and kids need to be reminded........not to hit each other.

really? that's how far we've deteriorated? that every schoolroom in america feels the need to post a list of rules for how to behave? because if they don't, no one will just instinctively know - not even by 10th grade - to keep your hands and feet to yourself? to raise your hand if you want to speak?

as a clinical social worker, i am in practically every classroom in franklin county, ohio, and i am here to tell you that yes, damned near every single one of them, regardless of grade level, has a posted list of behavioral rules. and the lists in the high school rooms are not that much, if any, different than the lists in the kindergarten rooms. am i the only one who sees the problem in this?

when i went to school, not a single teacher in the whole freaking system felt the need to post the "rules." we. all. just. freaking. knew. what. the. stupid. rules. were. for. God's. sake.

we knew what the rules were because we had parents -and churches - who taught us. and we didn't have parents who sued the crap outa the school system if their kid shoved another kid because the teacher never specifically said anything about not being allowed to shove.

there's this thing circulating around on facebook about how, back in the day, kids were "raised," not just allowed to "grow up."


well, at least facebook's doin' somethin' right.

ketchup..........AND hot dogs!

i have been on a hot dog jones for quite awhile now and i'm tellin' ya, i gotta stop. not that i will, but i gotta.

at this late stage in my life, i have suddenly discovered chicago-style hot dogs. i have long been a fan of chicago-style pizza, but in all my flesh and glory, i am here to tell you that, until this summer, i had never in my whole dysfunctional life heard of chicago-style hot dogs. i know? right? how did i get a master's degree?

but anyway, i had somehow managed to grow up, get married - twice, have a child, have two going on five grandchildren, and still never hear about chicago-style hot dogs. (houston? i am the problem.)

but anyway, just as charlie and olivia jump up and down so fast it makes their teeth knock together at the mere mention of the word "ketchup," i'm doin' some jumping jacks of my own over hot dogs.

jumping jacks......hmmmmm......wonder how many jumping jacks it takes to burn up however many calories there are in a chicago-style hot dog.


a lot.

and KETCHUP!!!!!!

what's wrong with the world is, nobody gets excited about ketchup. unless you're 2- and a half years old.

when charlie and olivia returned from lunch at mcdonald's with their daddy yesterday, i asked them what they had gotten to eat. (as if i didn't already know.....you mean to tell me that mcdonald's makes hamburgers, too? not just chicken nuggets? huh. i gotta get out more.)

so, anyway, i asked them what they had gotten to eat and olivia said, "chicken nuggets!" - as if it was thee most amazing fact on earth and charlie said, "and fries!" - in an attempt (successful) to put skinny potatoes in the same elite category as a little chicken that'd been chopped to smithereens.


and then.........about 2 seconds later, charlie said, "and KETCHUP!!!!!!!!!!!!"

and olivia jumped up and down and said, "yeah, grammy......KETCHUP!!!!!!!!!!"


and i wondered to myself......when was the last time i got excited over.....ketchup.

and then i remembered when ronald reagan tried to say that ketchup counts as a vegetable in school lunches cuz it's made out of tomatoes.

and then i remembered when carly simon sang "anticipation" for the heinz ketchup folks and how that commercial just drove me nuts........waiting and waiting and waiting for that ketchup to come out.

and it was then that i realized............life's short. why wait?

let's have KETCHUP.....


NOW!

does clorox work on allergies?

well, we're about to find out!


allergy season is in full-swing here in central ohio, aka the corn belt, the rust belt, and the allergy belt. me? personally? i would like to come after this state with a belt.

but, anyway, my allergies are about to send me to the nuthouse. but instead of going to the nuthouse, i am going to go to abby and eli's house. to-day. to clean. to clean from top to bottom, in advance of abby's return home on monday. not to be confused with her leaving home on friday. (you need to pay better attention.)


so, anyway.......i am going to clean from top to bottom (but no bottoms, eli. you're still on duty for that, dude. sorry.), and i am going to try to do it with my eyes closed because it is impossible to sneeze and keep your eyes open at the same time.

and i am going to try to do it with my throat all half-swollen shut and red and itchy. which actually might not be such a problem because who needs a throat to clean house? i mean, you need one, but you don't need need one.

and, on top of everything else, i am going to do all of this - top to bottom - with absolutely no alcohol (because it's against abby and eli's religion. no, i mean, literally. it is). except for what i might be able to find in the cleaning solvents.

JUST KIDDING!

(sort of.)


ahhhhh-choooo!

ok, three things - boom, boom, boom - that happened to me today that just sorta ticked me off.

1. i pull out of the parking garage, drive around to the gate, and there's a car in front of me. ok, so, the way the gate works is, when you are entering the parking garage, you have to press a button on a gizmo in your car that's just like a garage door opener, but when you are leaving the garage, the gate opens automatically for you - provided you are close enough to the gate. right? so, ok, this car in front of me is not close enough to the gate for the gate to open so i stop, assuming the car is going to roll forward a little bit and get close enough to the gate, only it doesn't. the driver just sits there. i wait and i wait and i wait for the driver to finally start moving, only she never does. so, i start to go around her and then, i see her tires rolling. so i stop. right? because i think she's finally getting her ass in gear and movin' along. right? wrong. because then, she stops again. i wait and i wait and i wait for her to start moving again, only she never does. so, you guessed it, i start again to go around her and then, a-gain, i see her tires rolling. so, a-gain, i stop. and, you guessed it again, she stops again. so, i'm like, WT?? right? so finally, since she is just sitting there like a bump on a log, this time i really and truly drive around her, the gate opens, and i leave. but not before she shoots me a dirty, dirty look. because, excuuuuuuuuuuuuse her, but she was on her cell phone.

2.  same day - same street: a car in front of me stops to talk to people in a car parked at the curb. i wait patiently. they talk and they talk and they talk. and they talk. and they talk. so, finally, i give a very polite little tap on the horn. i mean, very polite. so polite, it was practically a curtsy. so whadda they do? the lady in the passenger's seat sticks her head out the window and gives me a rotten look and the driver sticks his hand out his window and gives me the finger.

3. i go to coldstone creamery for, what else, an ice cream cone. i wait and i wait and i wait at the counter but no sales person is in sight. i call out, "excuse me! anybody here?" a coupla times, but no sales person in sight. i am finally getting ready to give up and just say the hell with it, i'll go to dairy queen or something, when out from the back room comes this little jerk of an employee, talking on her cell phone. she looks at me, makes eye contact with me, and just keeps right on yapping, yapping, yapping. i stand there in amazement. finally, she lifts her chin from the phone and says, "help ya?" and.....against my better judgment.....i proceed with my order. "yes, i'll have the cake batter ice cream, small size, waffle cone." she keeps talking. on the phone - not to me. blah, blah, blah.....talk, talk, talk. "you want it in a cup or a cone?" 

cone.

two cones?

one.

huh?

why don't you hang up the damned phone and maybe you could get my order right.

she hangs up. and says, "i was like, talking to my boss!"

and i was like, next time you talk to your boss? ask him if he'd rather that you talk to him - or to the customers.



(but truthfully? i don't wanna know his answer.)

how many things are like make-up?

a good make-up has to go on, it has to stay on, and then it has to come back off.

sorta like a baby.......it has to go in, stay in, and then come out.

a tomato seed? in, in, out.

our lives? in, in, out.

the next life?

in.



you might wanna think about that.

not kidding about "heaven.com"

last week i blogged about whether or not our technological civilization will ever progress to the point where we can go to heaven (or hell) via computer. most everyone scoffed at the mere mention of the (preposterous) idea.



how far away can "heaven.com" really be if i can see a 3-D ultrasound of my unborn grandchildren?

and if you can see a 3-D ultrasound of my unborn grandchildren?

and if anyone on planet earth can see a 3-D ultrasound of my unborn grandchildren?

i mean.............huh? how far away?


not very.........that's how far.

"any pizza - ANY size, ANY crust, ANY toppings - for 10 bucks"

how can they say this and then have fine print that says, "does not include cheese-stuffed crust and double toppings."


sometimes, i just wanna give up.

re-post this! or ELSE!

there's a very rude trend on facebook to post things, usually about a "good cause," that include an "i dare you NOT to" chastisement to re-post the post. well, RE-POST THIS:

i am sick and tired of people telling me what to re-post and that they know - in their infinite wisdom -  who WILL and who WILL NOT re-post what they just posted, with the VERY STRONG and UNMISTAKABLE implication being.........if i don't re-post, i'm a pathetic loser without a heart.

by the way, your "infinite wisdom" is pretty spot-on: the instant you tell me that you know who will and who won't re-post........you're right.

i won't.

all we are saaaaaaying........is this isn't riiiiiiiiight........

my agency's free "community picnic" last friday afternoon/evening:


mother #1, upon receiving a children's museum pass, good for free admission for up to a family of 8, says: "last year, there was no expiration date."

mother #2, upon seeing the food provided, says: "not everybody likes hot dogs. i, for one, don't."

mother #3, upon passing through the entrance gate, says: "why'd you guys set up the entrance here? over there woulda been more convenient."

father #1, upon asking what there is to drink and being told coke, diet coke, sprite, gatorade, and bottled water, says: "i like pepsi."

grandmother #1, upon looking for a place to sit down and rest for a minute says, "these chairs are awfully small."

relative of some sort #1, upon realizing that the band was between sets says, "y'all oughta just play CDs."

and mother # 1 - again - upon exiting the grounds with her 5 kids in tow  says, "thanks, but it was better last year. i mean, it was good, but it was better last year."

heaven dot com

a friend and i used to sit around trying to blow thomas jefferson's mind. we'd end up blowing ours in the process. this is how it went:

one of us would say, "you think thomas jefferson ever conceived, in his wildest dreams, of.......... fill in the blank." we'd fill in the blank with things like automobiles, cell phones, airplanes, going to the moon, skyscrapers, national football and baseball leagues, cable, computers, skype, a trillion dollars, a trillion dollar debt, the astro dome, and stores never closing on sunday.

sometimes we'd substitute thomas jefferson with leonardo da vinci or socrates or martin van buren. (we only substituted with martin van buren once. and the game was short. trust me.........try it.)



my friend and i never really knew, of course, the answers to our questions, but the conversations that they sparked and the thinking that they required were, if nothing else, great time passers on a long road trip.

but they were much more than that. they were reminders to get our houses in order.



they were reminders that - whatever you think is impossible - probably isn't.

that whatever you think doesn't extend beyond today, probably does.

that just when you think you're so damned smart........you aren't.


which brings me to the question that i am going to ask you, not thomas jefferson- because it is the only question that my friend and i know for absolute sure what mr. jefferson's answer would be - but we don't know what your answer is. much less, ours:


will we ever go to heaven (or hell) virtually?

milk duds taste like getting out of the pool at break

they taste like getting out of the pool at break and all that water runs down your legs.

they taste like grabbing a beach towel with faded stripes and walking real fast

with your head down

and your arms going back and forth real fast

like in the army, only

you're not in the army,

you're racing to the

snack bar without running,

cuz that's against the rules.


milk duds taste like "snack bar" and you're standing behind a boy with

a skinny neck and freckles.

he shifts from one foot to the next

and one foot to the next,

trying to decide what to get with his 2 whole

quarters.


milk duds taste like life and just when the box is empty and

you think it's all downhill from there,


the whistle blows.

thinking eroor correction

as the title indicates, i cannot type the word "error" correctly - at least, not without very, very deliberate effort. to prove this fact, from this point onward, i promise not to correct the word "error" whenever i type it. by the time we get to the end of this post, i think you will agree that i cannot type the word erroor very well.

but the larger point.....beyond whether or not i can type the word "error" correctly......is......why am i talking about thinking errror corrections and what, in the freaking first place, is a thinking eroor correction anyway?

a thinking eroor is psychobabble for, "you moron, you!"

by extension, then, a thinking erro correction is, "think like i think and you'll be fine."


in my line of work, pretty much all we do all day long is correct people's thinking errors. we run around all day telling people that the way they think - either about one thing in particular or, more likely, about everything in general - is screwed up. and the magic of this is, we're hardly ever wrong! in other words, we hardly ever make thinking eoorros about somebody else's thinking errors. it's a great job, really. if you can get it.

what it boils down to is, as social workers, we get to decide what's functional and what's not. what's healthy and what's not. what is a stupid, idiotic, knock-if-off-buster way of thinking about things and what is not. and not only that......we get to tell people to knock it off! (except, we can never actually use the words "knock it off." because if we did, our boss would correct our thinking eroors and we'd be out of a job.)

even so, that's basically what social workers do......they tell other people that their thinking is pathetic but they do it in such a way as to sound real nice and lovey-dovey about it. ergo, "thinking error." as opposed to........"a-hole!"

however, the problem with correcting somebody else's incredibly stupid thinking errors is that, at the end of the day (literally), you have to type up all of your clinical notes and you have to make it sound like what you did all day long was helpful and beneficial and not rude or haughty. which is why we type up the words, "thinking errorr correction" rather than, "you incredibly stupid moronic a-hole, you!"

except, i can never type the word "erroor" right.


apart from that, though...... i am so much better than everyone else.

the good old days

the good thing about the good old days is, everybody had 'em. the bad thing is, nobody knew it.


carly simon said that these are the good old days, and i think she was right.


the trick isn't so much to re-create something from the past as it is to create something from the now. and to recognize, in the now, that it is good.


a long, long, long, long time ago, God created the world, and He recognized, then, that it was good.


i think maybe we should, too.

courtright court. right?

there's a street in columbus called "courtright road," which is fine, but there is also a street off of courtright road called "courtright court," which is not fine.

all i know is........i wouldn't wanna have to be the one trying to explain to the customer service representative over the phone that my address is courtright court. it'd go something like this:

customer service representative (hereafter known as "csr"): may i have your address, ma'm?

me: blah, blah, blah courtright court.

csr: 'scuse me?

me: it's blah, blah, blah......courtright......court.

csr: two courts?

me: right.

csr: so, it's 2 courtright court.........right?

me: no, it's not 2 courtright court, it's blah, blah, blah courtright court.

csr: um................


me: i know.......... right?