Soooo, Thursday I picked up my grandson after school, fed him and got him started on homework.  Suddenly, he said, “You know what the worst part of today was?  When a lady from CPS took me out of math class and made me talk to her.”  Yep.  The school called CPS for reasons not yet clear, but probably related to his response to the ongoing religious persecution he’s experienced in his classroom.  The class is comprised of kids who have almost all been together going on 5 years.  Teacher is a fundamentalist Christian, and at least one girl in the class has a father who is a protestant minister.  We’ve dodged issues of paper topics throughout the year, including one in which a discussion of the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance was deemed too controversial.  Interestingly, the teacher delivering anonymous Christmas cards to each child’s mailbox was not so controversial.

So, grandson is pushing limits hard and has had kids whisper to him that he’s going to hell and that he must love Satan because at this point in his lengthy 10-year-old life, he’s pronounced himself an atheist.  Wonder if Grade 5 has helped push him that way?  No matter.  He did something inappropriate (wrote on his hand) in class in response and the next thing we know, we’ve got the school psychologist talking to him (without family present), the Vice Principal, School Counselor and someone else then doing the same.  Friday culminated in the visit by CPS (without family present).  Of course, this gal claims she asked for an appointment and was ignored (she mailed it on Feb 3, it arrived afternoon of Feb 5 – appointment was for 8am Feb 5).  Long story short, there has been fear, confusion, a wake-up call for my grandson’s mother, and another long hard look at the public school system.  We’ve got a meeting on Monday with the Principal who still denies that the school called.  Cowards.  Talk about violating a sacred trust.  This kid is in no danger.  How do we send him back to school knowing they will do this on a moment’s notice?

For the record, I was raised Southern Baptist, went through my own agnostic, New Age  hippie, try on a bunch of churches period.  I am now a semi-practicing Episcopalian.  I like this group of people because they respect the origins of liturgy, but are actually rationalists.

I do, however, rabidly believe in the separation of church and state.  At this point I want to demand that the school start recognizing Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan, Ba’hai and ISIS holidays and whatever else anyone can think of.  I would really like to see the kids who’ve been whispering “You’re going to burn in hell” to have a psych eval because,well, that sounds like bullying to me.

Work continues to be on a bit of a roller coaster and hubby and I had it out yesterday morning because of his sheer moodiness and taking it out on me.  I really just need a week/month without drama.  I’m thinking that might be too much to ask, but I’m still setting my intentions on making it happen.

The kitchen renovation moves forward.  Yesterday brought a trip to the southside to look at the stone and determine where the cuts might be.  I still cannot believe how beautiful this stone is.  After much back and forth, I think we have the correct configuration.  They cut on Monday and then multiple teams return on Wednesday to finish the cabinet work left undone and install this beautiful granite/marble (there is some disagreement as to exactly what it is).

More painting yesterday and tempers are growing short as the days are long and we have two strong willed people managing the project.  OK, let’s acknowledge that I am not managing the project in any way and that doesn’t thrill me.  I prefer having much more control, much clearer paths to completion, and much clearer communication.  Hubby is a lone wolf – keeping all the details in his head and delegating out tasks without any detail as to where we’re going.  It works for him – he’s good at project management.  But being on the receiving end of this style of management is not for me.  Right now he is sawing away inside the house to start getting the bamboo floors down.  There will be excessive dust.

Grandson’s mother posted pics of 3 of my still unseen grandchildren online to Facebook yesterday.  I long for Ember to look up and let me see her eyes, but seeing her at all is a huge bonus.  Her mother revoked my “friend” status on Facebook because I didn’t ask to see the children in the right way when my son had some moments of sanity.  We are back at square one.  At some point I will tire of all this and simply go find them.  Guess we will see what happens when I do that.  But know this:  Ember, Rori, Tenzin – I love you all and would be a big part of your lives if your parents would allow it.  Some day you will be able to ask your older brother about Nana and hopefully what he says will carry some weight.  In the meantime, I wait.

Client is emailing us today about a delay in work product which cannot possibly be our fault – and add to that they have not paid for it.  This is not making me very happy, and I’m sure the team that is now tasked with work on Sunday is less than thrilled.

We are destroying our 1978 kitchen cabinets today.  As of this hour, we’ve carried an EDTV (extended definition TV – precursor to HDTV) and a monstrous round coffee table to Goodwill.  Our 1978 faux pecan cabinets are being cut and removed from the house by my husband any my hairdresser’s strong and reliable son.  Soon, more furniture will be relocated either permanently in the pool room, or temporarily in the garage.

Since I’ve been working the entire time this project has been underway, I now literally have no idea where anything is.  This is distressing to me because I am more than a little OCD.  Mild panic set in this morning when I could not find a spoon to stir my coffee.  I couldn’t find anything with which to stir my coffee.

Now the issue will be that coffee shall be found in the hall bathroom or at Starbucks until this is over.  I can live with that.

Pics to come.

Among my resolutions/commitments to 2015 is blogging again.  Obviously, it’s taken me a few days to get serious about this.  There are explanations for the delay – all of which involve work.  Still, I should do this.  I once had an online blog that I managed to keep very active for about 7 years.  Then part of my world came to an end and I changed.  Seems time that I find my voice again.

I’ve been thinking about how I think about my world.  How do I categorize events, thoughts, opinions, emotions – the things that make up my mental life?  Despite outward appearances, it is my inner mental life that consumes the vast majority of my time.  And trust me, I have a big outer life.

What do I know 2015 will bring?  Physical changes – aging, the need to address some health concerns, people coming and going by virtue of birth, death, relocation, choice.  Mental changes – a strange combination of both increased tolerance and intolerance, willingness to let go of some things I’ve not been able to let go of, acknowledgement of a slight slowing in my mental response times – and how I’ll fight to stop that.  Emotional changes – re-evaluating relationships, self-perception, my capacity to love and be loved, facing fears.  More stuff – but that’s a start.

Right now we’re in limbo about my brother in law who at 57 has spots showing on a CT scan of the liver and the lungs.  This could go south very, very quickly.  Sister survives cancer, only to lose her previously healthy-as-a-horse husband.

House is in limbo as the gutting of a 35 year old kitchen is in progress (pics to come).  If all goes well, we will have cabinets on the 15-16th, followed by new flooring, then appliances, and then countertops (hubby and I disagree on the order of the last two).  Once finished, that room will stand as a monument to the crossing over of mid-decade and will herald my husband’s 7th decade of life (when you turn 60, you enter your 7th decade of life – shocking, but true).

10 min of writing.  First update of 2015 done.  This works.

Sooooooo……

I skipped dinner with the team on Thursday night in favor an ice cream and a diet Dr. Pepper in my hotel room.  Much of 9/12 was filled with emotional discussions among our executive ranks. I was grateful to get to the airport where I snarfed down a chicken sandwich anticipating a brief layover in Charlotte.  It was not to be.  While my flight left and arrived on time, I wore a blister on my right foot from not wearing socks with my clogs – while doing the 10 min gauntlet from B terminal to E terminal at CLT.  Of course, once there, a massive thunderstorm settled over Charlotte and in the end, my 8:01 flight didn’t take off until after 10pm.  I got home sometime around 11:30pm and finally to sleep at 12:30am.  Not my usual routine.

Anticipating the arrival of our ridiculously expensive Tempur Pedic bed today, I started on the laundry shortly after I got up at 7:30am (sleeping in for me).  I bypassed the cleaning in favor of sorting through 4 days of mail and packages. Mattress guys arrived just as I was falling asleep on the sofa for a nap at 2:30pm.  First, there was confusion about disposal of our 14 year old existing mattress and box springs (resolved – they were removed).  Then came our realization that we  weren’t really getting a king-sized bed:  rather, 2 twins with separate mechanisms that would be placed side-by-side.  Ok, fine. Then we realized that one of the two bases was cracked and damaged.  Fine.  Call to the distributor was made, base was returned to the truck with the promise of a new one tomorrow.  Then I realized that one of the two Tempur-pedic mattresses had a red stain on it – from being packaged in plastic in the head with some red colored promotional materials inside.  Well, since the one thing that voids a TP mattress warranty is a stain, I had to reject it.  Fine – they took it out to the truck and headed to the next delivery.  About an hour later we heard from Alan, who announced that there were no more mattresses available and I would have to wait 2 weeks for another one.  No, no, no.  You are not bringing me a new base and not a mattress.  You are not making me wait 2 weeks, bring me damaged goods, then announce that you need 2 more weeks to provide a replacement – not for $8000 worth of product which I can now clearly see is a particle board base with a hefty motor, and two twin TP mattresses.  About 8 calls later, the plan now is to return the red stained one with a plan to replace it with an undamaged one asap.  Of course 2 weeks from now is my anniversary weekend, so the last thing we want to do is to spend it sitting here at the house waiting on a mattress delivery.  Meh.

I’m not sure this is going to work for us anyway.  I mean two twins means a big seam in the middle – not conducive to cuddling.  It will be good that each of us can control the head and foot elevation, but the actual mattress is in no way a king.

Good thing is that when we saw our old mattress out in the driveway, it became apparent why we have back pain.  It was really sagging.  Pity these things are so stupidly expensive.

Hopefully tomorrow’s delivery won’t be too disruptive.

Also accomplished today was the setup of Apple TV, though I haven’t figured out how to make it just stream the mac desktop to the TV.  We are, however, now more easily watching Netflix from the den television and that is a win.

Not sure what to do about the stress and conflict at work.  I know that when I push folks, it gets worse, but when I don’t see the productivity I need from some people, I’m not sure what else to do.

In other news, ISIS has now decapitated an innocent aid worker.  2 journalists and an aid worker down, more in the lineup.  So many of the worst situations in my life and apparently in world history have been precipitated by folks who are just hell bent to pick a fight….