It's Good Friday, which if you understand anything at all about the crucifixion of Christ, it isn't a "good" day at all. It's the saddest day in the Christian calendar. Not so good, Al. Not so good.
I was going to get into a whole thing today on how it should be called "Not So Good" Friday, or, "Whattabummer" Friday due to the suffering Jesus had to endure on this historic day. But to be completely honest, I don't have the energy or the gumption to get into a whole "thing" today.
It's 8:30am. I'm tired. I don't have the energy to get into thinking creatively. I got up early so Doug could sleep in and so I could feed the dog, the pig, the boy. Doug ended up waking up a few minutes ago, so I feel the whole me getting up thing was useless.
Thank God for coffee.
If I manage to wake up enough, perhaps I will "screed" against the commercialization of Easter through colored eggs, bunnies and marshmallow peeps, and the overt secularization of this most holy week and its culminating day. Or perhaps I'll just dye eggs with my shorties. That'd be more constructive.
The family has the day off from school today, they give Good Friday as a holiday... which I honestly don't remember getting off as a kid.
Perhaps I grew up in too Jewish a community... lots of my friends were Jewish, in fact when I look back there was a time when I had no other friends except Jewish kids. I think it helped me learn a lot about the roots of Christianity and made me appreciate my faith better. It made me more aware that the Bible as Christians use it is 80% Hebraic, 20% Jesus. But most Christians only rely on the 20% Jesus part and ignore all but a few psalms and the creation story when it comes to living their faith. Too bad.
In honor of Good Friday, Doug is shutting the water off to the house and replacing our front sink fixtures, which is something that has needed to be done for a very long time.
We'll see how that goes, hopefully successfully. Doug gets very very ornery when doing anything home-improvement related. He would not be a good partner to have on my side for TLC's "Trading Spaces," or any other kind of DIY thing.
I enjoy home improvement projects, but man. He just does not. Never has, never will. He likes yardwork and gardening, whereas I can live without that and hire someone out or make the kids do it later in life.
Whoever designed our house was a complete and total shithead. The bathroom sink has no shut-off valves under it, so the source of the water to the entire house has to be turned off in order for any work to be done. What a piece of crap this place is! Houses built out of code back in the 60s. Aaaah, gotta love it. So I just called our tenants to let them know there would be no water for a while. Jen had some surgery on her back on Monday so she's been laid up for the week and is in no hurry to use water, and Pete isn't around for the day ... so today is the best day to get things done. No better time than the present.
I substitute taught again yesterday. The phone rang at 6:30am, and Doug and I knew immediately what it was. I was asked to do pre-school, which made me really happy... no middle school for me for a change. Woohooooo!
To be bluntly honest, I wasn't needed at all. Doug is familiar with this particular class and told me there were two classroom aides (one was out sick) so the one who was there had everything in control and I didn't have much to do. There were parent volunteers, a one-on-one aide for one of the kids, and at one point, there were six adults in the class of 14 kids. It seemed excessive. I kept asking her what she wanted me to do, and she'd hand me one small thing and do the rest.
So it was a cake walk. I liked the kids a lot, they were pretty well behaved even though the teacher's aide said some of them wouldn't handle a substitute well. A few of them had issues, one was exactly like Geoff in behavior and attitude so I talked to the aide to ask if he'd been tested for anything. She said he had auditory processing issues and Oppositional Disorder, which is the new hot-button term for kids who are constantly and unrelentingly oppositional (I think my friend Chris Kelly wrote an article on that once, and he should know... he was kind of that way too).
I think she could have handled the day all on her own, and the fact that they called me so early in the morning when they KNEW this teacher was going to be out (she was at a meeting that Doug was also at) made me think the teacher's aide was panicking the night before and requested a sub. It was an easy day. I enjoyed myself immensely.
Today is the day I mail in my first "timecard" for unemployment. How weird. It's kind of like a book of the month club or record club return card... where you color in circles and write words in big block sections. It made me laugh when I looked at it. It covers two weeks, and I am completely in the dark as to what they'll be sending me.
We told Geoff's school that his last day will be April 12th, so in the next two weeks I really need to finish the two websites I started up, fix his bedroom wall, finish painting the livingroom, and clean my bedroom, because I will have no time to do anything for longer than 10 minutes with him around full time.
Yikes. I wonder how long this will have to last. I'm willing, don't get me wrong, to be here with him and be mom and not work full time, but moneywise things come June are going to be hell if all that's coming in here is going to be my unemployment check. Good Lord. Doug's going to have to get a summer job that pays well. I don't want to raise the rent at all, it's not fair to them, and I can't earn too much while on unemployment or they cut my benefits. If I get paid for a website, I have to put the amount down (i.e. 800 bucks or whatever) and then they compensate for that week. What I might do is have people pay me in 100 dollar increments instead of lump sums, seeing as the two I'm doing are declaring that they are paying me, so it isn't under the table (rats).
I feel really weird collecting unemployment. I mean, I've been working full or close to full time for so long that I can't imagine that people do this. I feel like George Costanza... how long can I stretch this out??? But on the other hand I feel guilty. I should be working, not collecting. Sigh.
In other news, my sister called me yesterday to say she scored a waitressing job, which I figured she would. She still is looking for a full time office computer/training job, but the waitressing thing will get some quick dosh into her hands and help her out. She is hoping to score a "real" job within a couple months, once she figures out where things are. Employment agencies, head hunters, all these things that used to work are useless now, so she's relying on who has what connection, and when you are in a new place and don't know many people it can be hard. Cross your fingers kids... hope she can pull something out.
I just heard Doug yell something at the TV. I guess another news bubble head mispronounced "sepulcher" or something and he is mocking loudly now. As I've ranted before, get it right before you report it kids... get it right. Makes me laugh.
Oh, and by the by, the Black Crowes reference up there is just ridiculous. I couldn't find any picture that went with Good Friday except some of Christ on Cross and didn't want (as I mentioned) to get into that whole thing this morning, so my mind, being as it is, brought itself to a Crowes song. I'm not a big Black Crowes fan. I have "Shake Your Money Maker," which is a greatassed album, and another one called "By Your Side," which has a couple absolutely wonderful kicking songs on it, but for the most part, these guys are just mediocre.
No, no, no, silly. Not the lead singer, that's Chris Robinson.
That bag of skinnyassed pot-smoking Kate Hudson-banging bones ain't my scene baby. I'm talking about Rich Robinson is his brother, and the band's guitarist... and he's cute. Chris Robinson said in an interview once that he was sad his younger, quieter brother cut his hair ... "it used to make him look like Kathleen Turner," he said with a hearty smirk.
He (Rich) is Much cuter than skinny ole skinny mister man lead singer there. But it doesn't really matter on the whole. It isn't like I'd ever meet these guys or anything. The quote had to do with "good Friday," so I made the deconstruction. That's all.
I've got nothing else. I'm losing it. I should go back to bed. Snore.
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