How to Make a Donkey Mad

So for the last several weeks, we have been in deep discussions with one of our guys about getting a cat. We honestly think he wants the cat so that he will have a reason to buy pet insurance. (Logic is not one of his stronger attributes). Anyway, Lowell and I have been anti-cat, for various reasons. We aren't really cat people. This guy can't keep his room clean to save his life. And mainly, we are worried that we are going to have a dead cat on our hands in just a few short months.

However, there's a fine line between being against having a cat and letting him know we are against having a cat. We have been having to play both sides of the fence, dealing with him, his guardians, and the company we work for. It's not been easy.

So the other night, to stir up some fun, Lowell says something along the lines of, "Why a cat? Why not get a goat?" To which he seriously responds, "No, I don't have enough room for a goat." (This was also his response concerning smaller pets such as a hamster or turtle.) He wants a cat because he wants a pet that will be waiting for him when he gets home and will "snuggle up" with him at night. When we point out that cats aren't known too much for waiting at the door for their owners to get home so they can "snuggle," he says that he is planning on training his cat to do what he wants. After some time of forcing it to sleep with him, the cat will learn to snuggle and be happy to see him. Are ya' seeing where our concerns are coming in??

Anyway, after the goat comment he goes on to say if he had to get a pet such as a goat, he would get a donkey. He thinks it would be fun to have a donkey, mainly because their "real names" are jackass. He proceeds to tell us that "people don't call them jackasses though because it would look funny. Imagine hearing your neighbors outside calling their donkey in - 'here jackass, here jackass, come on jackass.' And not only that, imagine how mad and confused the donkeys would be hearing their owners call them jackasses. They would be upset knowing that they hadn't done anything wrong and would wonder why they were being called a jackass. It'd probably make them so mad that they would wait until their owners were standing behind them and then they'd buck up and kick them. Because, you know, donkeys don't know their real names are jackass."

And there really isn't even a response from Lowell or me. I mean, honestly, how does one respond to that conversation?

Anybody wanna join a pool on how long the cat survives???

A Penny for your Thoughts

One of our guys loves money. All money. Dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. All money. When working with him, we have to be very aware of our surroundings, because he will literally walk in the middle of the road if he sees something resembling change. He doesn't have a good understanding of the values, but he does know that the silver ones are more valuable than the copper, but that's never kept him from jumping out of the van to get the copper.

We recently had to call our maintenance department because our garbage disposal wasn't working properly. The guy came to fix it and pulled this out of the disposal:




And it just blew our minds. We thought we had figured out who the culprit was though. Certainly not the money hungry one. Surely not the one who definitely knows better. It had to be the one who knew better but would think it was funny. So we talked to him and talked to him about how if it happened again, he would be responsible for the maintenance charges to get the garbage disposal fixed. And he swore over and over again that this was stupid and asked why on earth we would think he would do that.

Two days later, the garbage disposal is once again just barely humming. We reach in there ourselves this time, and again pull out a handful of pennies. This time, there were even more than the first time. And we notice that some of the pennies are more beaten-looking because they were the same pennies that were in there the first time that Mr. I Love Money swiped off the counter as soon as Maintenance put them there. He was the culprit!

So that's been our latest behavior issue. And although better than some of the other behaviors we've had to deal with, it still feels odd every time I say, "Now where do we put the pennies we don't want? Do we put them in the sink? Noooo. We put them in the jar right??" This has been mildly successful. And we have caught him recently just throwing them in the trash. And although I am not a fan of throwing any money away, at least we don't have to call maintenance!

How My Cup Runneth Over

I've never been big on Thanksgiving. Not so much the giving thanks part, but the getting together to give thanks part. It's never bothered me to have to work on Thanksgiving Day. Honestly, I usually enjoy it. In the line of work that we do, a big holiday normally means we have fewer people to work with. And that makes for a nice break.

But this year was different. My brother and sister-in-law and their kids are in Arkansas for the week. And I'm in Kansas. Joshua took on the duty of being our family representative so he is hanging with my people while I am here taking a psychotic guy to get an EKG, arguing the pros and cons of getting a cat with another, and listening over and over again to whatever happens to be the conversation of the day for our guy with no short-term memory. And so, while I am thankful I have a job, I've also thought a lot about the other things I am thankful for.

I am so thankful for my family (including the wonderful family I was fortunate to marry into). We certainly have had our share of dysfunction (no more or less probably than most families - we've had the divorces, the addictions, the remarriages, the griefs, the crazies, the relocations, the arguments, the FBI investigations - kidding, kind of - etc.) but we get through it. I know the saying about not being able to pick your family, but I'd choose these people over and over again if given the chance. All of them - even the really crazy one, because she's made us who we are. And I really like who we are.

I am so thankful for a husband who loves me no matter what stupid thing I say or do. He loves me when our house is a mess because I just don't feel like doing anything about it. He loves me when I get up in the morning, and even after being with me ALL DAY LONG, he still loves me when we go to bed at night. What more could a girl want?

I am thankful that I have the most amazing kid in the world. I'm not saying he doesn't drive me up the wall, because nobody does that any better. He makes me CRAZY. But he also makes me laugh like nobody else can make me laugh. He is truly so stinkin' funny! And besides having a great sense of humor, he is sensitive and compassionate and loves people well. He's gonna do great things one day. Mark my words on that one.

I am thankful that I have great friends. When we moved away from home (Arkansas) two years ago, I thought to myself, "I'll never have friends like I do now." And guess what? I was right. But what I didn't realize then was that I didn't need proximity friendships. I have friends that I know I will have FOREVER who live all over the country. And I know that if I even need those people in a way that requires their physical presence, they will drop whatever they are doing and be at more door. And I would do the same for them. How blessed I am!

I am thankful for my job. I have a job that allows me to stay home with my husband and son. I have the opportunity to make a difference every day in somebody's life. I may have to deal with crazy. A LOT of crazy. But honestly, we are pretty good at crazy. Why we had to be the people gifted at dealing with crazy, I don't know. I just know we are. So I will try to embrace that. But I will probably always wonder why us.

I am thankful for Jesus. He loves me more than I could ever deserve to be loved. The other day when I might have been yelling at Joshua when I was trying to teach him math, he looked up at me and calmly says, "Do you need some Jesus?" (Told ya' he's funny!) Lowell walked through and said, "No, she has Jesus, she's just hiding Him under a bushel!" I think I do that too much. I don't want to hide Him. Even with my wonderful family, friends, husband, child, and job, I have nothing without Jesus.

So those are the big things. I'm also thankful for LOTS of little things, many of them materialistic things, but hey, I'm being honest. I am thankful for my iphone, books, and almost all reality television. I am thankful for vacations, convenience stores, Amazon.com, and eBay. I am thankful to live in a country where I can choose where to live, where and how to worship, and where and how to educate my child. I am thankful that I have to miss Thanksgiving with the family I dined with last year, and I am thankful that I will be missed at the table in Arkansas.

I could go on, but I will stop, say "Happy Thanksgiving" and return to trying to get caught up on all the blogs about my life, in a group home.

Beware the Snarl

So, about a month ago, I said I was back from my summer blogging break and would get all caught up. And that was the last you've heard from me.

Life's been crazy. And the problem was not the guys, it was our staff. We try really hard to be good supervisors. And we understand that we all have families and lives outside of our jobs, so we've been understanding. We've never written her up for being tardy. We've never told her no when she's needed time off (even when she had ZERO vacation hours.) We've let her run home and check on her kids periodically throughout the day, etc. I think we've been more than fair.

Since the job isn't sitting behind a desk, she works for eight hours and doesn't get a lunch hour. Mind you, a good portion of the day, our guys are in their rooms or at work so she would watch Judge Mathis, or Law and Order, or one of those true crime stories. There wasn't a lot for her to do, so we never really called her out on any of these things.

But recently, she started taking advantage of the inches we were giving. And boy did she take miles. It started with a "I'm going to drive through somewhere to pick up lunch." (Which was fine.) But then it became a "I'm running home to grab a bite." (Which was also fine, until it was more than just a bite.) For instance, she would drop off one of the guys at work at noon. She'd show back up at the house around 1:45, take another to work at 2:30, and we wouldn't see her again until she picked the first guy up a little after 4:00. So we were calculating a good 2.5 to 3 hours of her eight hour workday that she was hanging out at home.

We tried subtlety several times. It didn't work. So we finally hit a breaking point, where I very nicely told her that she needed to come straight back and couldn't have the company van at her house at all. I think most reasonable people would think, "Well, I got away with that for a long time, too bad the good times are over." But if you read this post about the cornstarch addiction, "reasonable" might not be the first word to come to mind when you think of her.

And indeed, she did not have a reasonable response. She yelled and got mad and blamed us. She even complained to Human Resources, who quickly informed her that she ought not be advertising the fact that she'd been away from her job upwards of three hours a day.

Things were extremely uncomfortable for about a month, but slowly getting better. And then the administration changed her hours. Oh, she was certain it was our doing. She claimed we were "retaliating" against her for taking her lunch. HR reminded her that we would have no reason to retaliate as we didn't lose anything, but she didn't seem to get that.

She quit talking to us completely. To us. Certainly not about us. We heard from several of our neighbors that we were "sneaky" people and they'd been warned to stay away from us. Thankfully, they knew the source and didn't heed the warning.

But all that's just the background to the war that broke out in the house earlier this week. Since she wasn't talking to us, it really made it uncomfortable to be on the guys side of the house. If we can't be over there, we can't really do our job. So it hit a point that we had to discuss it all. And we all got mad. And we all yelled. But when it was all said and done I had to laugh. I mean, it's not funny when someone attacks your character (and boy did she!), but some of the things she said were just so ridiculous.

She said we were "dark-hearted people with a sneaky side" who "wore nice clothes on the outside but were wolves on the inside." (Pretty sure she was calling us wolves in sheep's clothing, not commenting on our brand-name Goodwill/TJMaxx wardrobes, but maybe.) She said we were viciously angry people and that the day I told her she no longer got a lunch hour, I was so angry at her that my lip snarled up. (I've never known myself to have a lip snarl, but I've been practicing all week!)

All these things were, of course, hard to hear. But you know the old sticks and stones adage, so we were just rolling along with the argument, uh, conversation. Until this happened: I mentioned the fact that she hasn't spoken to us at all and how awkward that is for us and must also be for her. She responded that she will do her job, but nowhere in her job description does it say she has to "make small talk or be polite to her supervisors" so she had no intention of doing so. Well knock me over with a feather. Doesn't she know that I'm from the South and have never ever ever ever ever ever heard of such craziness?? Doesn't she know that I was raised such that if the spawn of Satan shows up at my door, I'm gonna just invite him on in, offer him a glass of sweet tea and ask him how his momma and them's doing?? Doesn't she know?? Call me what you want. Say I have a dark heart and a lip snarl. But don't say you don't have to be polite or make small talk. Because that's just not true! Small talk and politeness make the world go 'round! At least in my corner of the world.

It's just too bad we can't all live in my little corner of the world.

(And just FYI, I no longer have to worry about the lack of politeness in my home, because she is no longer a part of it.)

My Love Language - Interrupted

I remember years ago reading Dr. Gary Chapman's book "5 Love Languages." Later published were many spin-offs of this book: Five Love Languages for Children; Five Love Languages for Teens; For Men; For Singles, etc, etc. The five languages that convey love are affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. And supposedly we all fall into one of these categories.

But I don't think mine is included. And this may sound completely off-the-wall, BUT, I feel really loved when a person I love watches a television show I love. Crazy right?? And you may say, "Oh that falls under quality time." But no, it doesn't. 'Cause see, they don't have to watch it with me. They just have to watch it. So we can talk about it later.

I hesitated to even write this, because even I think it sounds a tad, or a lot, ludicrous. I feel loved when someone I love watches a TV show I love. But there it is, in black and white, out there for the world to see.

Now, on to the story. There really aren't many shows I "love." I L.O.V.E.D the show LOST. But it's over. And I will watch pretty much any reality show out there. (As Joshua can attest. He watches Survivor, and Amazing Race, and Next Food Network Star with me because he also loves those shows. He watches Project Runway SOLELY because I love it, and he loves me!) But my most recent television obsession has been "Drop Dead Diva" on Lifetime. I won't even go into the premise because it's so dumb it's embarrassing. But my super sweet husband watches it with me. And lest anyone question his manhood over this, I don't think he enjoys it too much. He just likes how happy it makes me to be able to talk about the show with him.

So last night was the two-hour season finale. I watched it when it was on of course, but it so happened to be on at the same times as the Denver-Pittsburgh preseason game. And I would never be the kind of wife who pulled her husband away from an NFL game. Because after all, I was DVRing "Drop Dead Diva" and there was an encore presentation on Lifetime later in the evening.

So at ten, we put Joshua to bed and start watching. I have to leave at eleven to go "sleep" next door (yes, I agreed to do it again!) but I told Lowell to text or call me at midnight when the show was over so we could talk about the cliffhanger that happens in the last 2 minutes of the show.

So, imagine my shock and surprise when my phone rings at 11:55 (not 12, like it was supposed to.) My first thought was, "oh how sweet, he wants to be on the phone with me when the aforementioned cliffhanger happens." But as soon as I answered the phone, all I could hear on the other end was our house alarm. So I am yelling the code and how to turn it off to him. And then he hangs up because the alarm company is calling. And then we meet outside to see and hear the big hook and ladder fire truck making it's way down our street.

And of course there's no fire. Just our resident cook making some (smoked/smoky/burned)sausage. What's funny is that when Lowell heard the alarm and ran next door, the guy just looks up at him and says, "Can you turn that thing off?" and continues cooking. Like Lowell was the one who set it off! But after dealing with the firemen and restoring some semblance of order to the house, there was no chance to get back to seeing the shock of Grayson being hit by a car as he is chasing after Jane as she dramatically left the restaurant after learning that Grayson had asked Vanessa to marry him.

Lowell seemed pretty okay with missing this. I was sad for him to have missed it. But I filled him in. And we talked about it together. And I felt happy. And very very loved!

And I also know we have it on DVR in case he decides he needs to see it for himself.

Somebody's Watching You

When we moved into the group home in Arkansas, I would NEVER sleep in the common area of the house. I knew if I did, and I woke up and somebody was standing over me, it would totally freak me out to the point that I would never ever be able to get over it. I would awaken in a panic if I accidentally fell asleep on the couch in the living area, even if no clients were in the house at the time. I was just that adamant that nobody was going to be watching me sleep. I thought that was a characteristic about me that would never change.

I was wrong. I don't know what happened really. Maybe I realized that probably nothing is going to happen (after I get over the initial shock of course). Maybe I realized that these guys have to intention to hurt someone (except when the voices in their heads tell them to). Or maybe, and most likely, I'm just tired.

The company for whom we work has several homes like ours around town. This summer, there were several couples who left for other jobs, had babies, and/or took vacations. Due to lack of staff we were asked if we would be willing to do some overnights in the homes with no couples. This essentially meant going to the home and sleeping on the couch from 11 pm until 7 am when the day staff arrived. Our initial thought was something like, "Heck yeah, we can get paid to sleep?? Why say no?"

But you know how some things just aren't worth the money? Overnights just may be on that list.

In our house, people sleep. (Well, technically one stays up playing video games but he is in his room for the most part and doesn't come downstairs.) Apparently our house is the exception. The first night Lowell stayed at another house, he didn't sleep. One guy raced around the house all night. Literally ran around the house. Didn't need anything. Just wanted to speedwalk. Another got up before the sun came up, walked outside and urinated on the house next door. Apparently this is an attention-seeking behavior that he has tried before on new staff. It's a real shocker and definitely gets attention, but Lowell handled it like a champ and didn't make a big deal about it, so the guy walked back in and said, "not appropriate to pee outside." Yeah, like he was telling Lowell something he didn't already know.

The next house (yes, we agreed to do it again) was not much better. This one was supposed to be better because he wasn't going to have to stay on the side with the guys. He was told he could stay on the couple's side of the house and monitor the cameras to make sure everything was okay. What he wasn't told was that one guy walked outside every chance he got and an alarm on the couple's side of the house said, "FRONT DOOR" every time the door was opened, because of course the guy is not supposed to be outside alone at all hours of the night. When Lowell thought he was finally ready to settle in for the night, he looked at the monitor and watched this same guy eat a whole package of hot dog buns. When he started looking for more food, Lowell felt obliged to go back over and try once more to get the guy to go to sleep.

So this week, we were again asked if we could do the overnight shift at the house next door. We know these girls and we were under the impression that they all three sleep. And it's next door. However, one of the girls has a real fascination with men and for reasons left unsaid, we felt it was best for him not to be sleeping on their couch. So it fell to me. And since I am past my issues with people watching me sleep, I thought it would be cool.

The night kind of reminded me of a hospital stay. You know, where someone comes in every couple of hours to check on you. My first wake-up was actually another staff. She said she was just coming around to make sure I'd locked all the doors. Seriously?? Why wake someone up to see if the doors are locked?? My next wake-up was when one of the ladies was standing in the living room saying (in a very spooky voice), "Nicole, is that you? Is that you Nicole? I don't know who you are." Nicole is the day staff at that house and she and I look nothing alike, nor are we even the same race. And then every hour on the hour, there she was again. "Nicole, is that you? Is that you Nicole? I don't know who you are." I might have rather heard a loud alarm saying, "Front Door" than "Nicole, is that you? Is that you Nicole? I don't know who you are." In between the freaky stares and questions, she would go back to her room and listen to the radio. Except she would only listen to around 20 seconds of each song and then change the station. That is until the song, "Somebody's Watching You" (yes, the one from the 80s, or the Geico commercial depending on how old you are). This particular song, she listened to in its entirety. I'm not lying or even stretching the truth on this. Freaky doesn't begin to describe it.

Maybe my irrational fear of sleeping in someone else's living room and being stared at while I sleep was not so irrational after all.

A "Family" Conference

So I just noticed that it's been two months since I blogged. I guess maybe I took the summer off. I thought about blogging several times. It just didn't happen. Maybe I'll backtrack and catch up. Maybe I won't. I think that even though our life seems crazy to others; to us, it's just our life and sometimes just doesn't seem that interesting.

But the other night, we lost power. For hours. One would think that the guys would have just gone to bed being as it was dark anyway, and past at least two of their normal bedtimes. But no. We sat in the living room and held flashlights and looked at one another. I decide that it would be a good time to have a family meeting. (We are supposed to have these regularly, but since we cannot get the guys to sit down at the dinner table at the same time without major disruption, we don't have them nearly as often as we should.) But we were all in the dark together, so I suggest we have our family conference. One guy laughs, another just looks at me and the third says, very dryly, "The tv's broke. I guess we gotta talk to each other."

I start by asking if anybody has any problems or concerns they want to address. One guy is "just fine", another just looks at me and the third says, "Yes I do." He brought up the fact that he did not like for other people to use his bathroom. We explained that he rents his room and that just because the bathroom is upstairs, it is a part of the house just like the living room or kitchen and it is a common area that can be used. We also assured him that the only time anyone has ever used his bathroom was once months ago when the downstairs toilet was having issues. He was not satisfied with this response and threatened to sue if anyone went into "his" restroom. We said that we would be sure nobody ever entered his bathroom if he promised to quit going in the living room. He didn't like this suggestion so he went into the garage to "fix the electricity."

We hear him flipping every breaker switch out there while we moved on to activities we'd like to do next week. One guy says "whatever", another just looks at me. The guy in the garage is quiet and we wonder briefly if he's maybe electrocuted himself. But, alas, he came back in. He apparently heard the next topic because he suggested we all get a room at the Great Wolf Lodge for a fun activity. Seriously?? I can't even begin to go there in my mind. Can I imagine much worse than being in a hotel, in a waterpark, with these three, ALL TOGETHER??? Nope, I can't.

So I move on and ask if there are any special meals anyone wants next week. One guy says, "I'm happy with whatever you make," another just looks at me, and the electrician proceeds to give me a twenty-five item grocery list before flipping every light switch in the house to see if maybe that will get the electricity going.

It didn't work.

So - I kid you not - he goes outside in the pouring rain and starts banging on the side of the house. When we asked what he was doing, he responded that he thought if maybe he hit something hard enough it would jiggle the wires and reboot the power of the house.

And what we learned from his trial and error, is when the electricity is out, there is really nothing you can do but wait patiently for it to come back on. And have a family conference. Or not.