A picture

I will respond to the overwhelming outcry sweeping the universe for a picture on my weblog. Hmm, let me find my camera... okay i found it. Now lemme find the picture of (yet again) Hello Kitty that i drew... Nope. I could only find drawings by the kids. But Hello Kitty was carrying a giant assault rifle with a chainsaw bayonet. Oh wow. Such things exist... not to actually use, barring the apocalyptic rise of the undead. Even then, i would rather have a chainsaw and a rifle, not a chainsaw bolted to a rifle.

So instead of a picture drawn by me, please accept a picture drawn by Katrina, photoshopped by me. I have no idea what it represents. But it communicates something, right?

Today Houston had to turn in his House Project. He had to build a model shelter built in the rustic style Pioneers would have used. Houston chose a log cabin. He was supposed to build it, but i accidentally built it myself. Mostly (i tell myself) because the sharp stick cutters are dangerous, and Houston's level of patience with stacking logs while the glue is drying is not as vast as mine. But all i did was build the house. Houston designed it, he chose how big it would be, and he made some Sculpey accessories for it, like a person, and axe, and a pig. And he had to write the report. So he'll get a good score, and the score will be his. On Monday we go to his school for parent teacher conferences, so we'll get to see all the projects.

Katrina got a haircut!

I have been getting up every single morning early since last Friday. Okay, on Monday i got to sleep in until seven thirty, which was nice. But i'm just T I R E D. I'm sure i've said it before, but being permanently sleep deprived is part of being a parent of young kids.

Sigh. So when i got home today, i saw my little Katrina. Her hair has been growing out since she got her first haircut back in 2005. So it has been long. Fortunately, long hair is really cute on little girls. But i love bobs on little girls too. Today, Katrina has a bob. It's ADORABLE. And she hardly even cares. I made kind of a big deal about it, and she smiled and let me hold her, because she loves her daddy, but really was not impressed. But i love it.

It must be weird to be an adorable little girl. Everyone responds to you with warmth and attention. Katrina's living in a different world from the rest of us.

Stupid music!

I lost my mp3 player last Friday. Usually when i lose things, they kind of show up later, but this time i knew exactly when i'd had it last, and my path from there to where i knew i didn't have it was short and not complex, so i'm sure it's not in one of the dozens of random places i deposit things when my brain is otherwise occupied. By things like wondering how daddy long legs muscles manage to move those super long legs around. And can they see?

In fact i had a dream last night that i'd found my sturdy little toughened Sansa, which has served me so well. And which was cheap. I miss it. I think it fell out of my pocket between the YMCA and my home, or i left it in the YMCA building, and someone lifted it. Oh well.

So, i put my ZUMBA! tracks on my GPS, and made a playlist, and even tested out the first three songs. It worked well! The forth song, however, crashed. Crashed! So i had to lead the class with large gaps between numbers, and let my ZUMBA! addict homie Nicole lead a couple of the songs. I'm glad my class is patient with me. One of my regulars said "Hey, this is how Beto started out!" which is true -- Beto Perez got the idea for ZUMBA! when he was going to lead an aerobics class, and didn't have the proper music, so he just used whatever he had in his car -- a typically Columbian mix of salsa, merengue, reggaeton, cumbia, etc. It was a hit. My class, not so much.

So anyway, enough complaining. Next week my new (cheap!) mp3 player will hopefully be here, and i'll be back in business. I just hope it'll run Rockbox.

Area Morning Show Features ZUMBA!, Me

There's me on teevee! It's a local program, with a couple of the news desk people promoted to co-hosting a chatty upbeat morning show.

Now, i don't get much screen time, because the cameraman was a cameraman, and so he focused on the Hottie McHotster girls dancing behind me. Except i did have a line: "The salsa kick!" I am so proud. Karen pointed out that Tara (my fave instructor) didn't even have any camera time leading!

Yesterday we took family pictures, and they turned out really well. Thanks, Beth! Our family is cute cute. Unfortunately, i can't make Windows Networking work properly, so Karen's computer is not visible to my computer on the network. Some problem with my custom hot rodded WinXP install disks. All that to say that i can't post pictures, not without going over to her computer and moving the pictures from there. Not a bad idea -- it's been a bit of time since i did a proper backup.

Yum, Indian food and naan!

We don't get enough Indian food. And, we don't spend enough time eating at friends' houses. Tonight remedied both lacks! Thanks Andrew & Linda!

Last night i couldn't compose my thoughts, mainly because they were centered on going to bed and avoiding buying a new mp3 player because mine isn't in the first place i looked (and the exact one i'd love was for sale at Woot.com for $35). So i didn't buy anything, and went to bed. But now i'm at work where there's nothing like "going to bed" to keep me busy. All my morning responsibilities are complete besides doing bed checks to make sure everybody's where they're supposed to be.

At the dinner party ("party" for the kids, since they were running around being crazy, "dinner" for us, since we sat around conversing wittily) we wondered at how naan can be so yummy even though it's just flour, salt and yeast cooked in a hot pan. Linda cooked butter chicken, which tasted awesome, and much less lemon flavor than i'd expected, since for some reason i thought we were eating "lemon chicken". Andrew talked politics with conviction i've usually only seen from the other side of the political spectrum. The six children ran about the house generating chaos in their wake, which i guess somebody else cleaned up.

Okay, i'm going to go make coffee now. Thanks, guys!

My job...

I don't remember if i ever wrote about this: my workplace has changed!

Crossroads is the unit i've been working at for a few years, and it has always been one of the more successful programs in the agency. We've had a waiting list while other programs have been seeing their numbers drop. We left the Pine Rest campus about a year ago, because leasing their land and building was costing us like fifty grand a month. We moved into a building custom built just for us, and with the high census of our home, we necessarily had several rooms which were designed for three kids.

Now, as soon as i found out about THIS, i was disappointed. If we had a full house -- sixteen kids -- then nine, NINE, of them would need to be in triple rooms. Over half of our group trustworthy enough to be roommates? Really? We're going to have, so objected i, kids mistreating each other, sexually verbally, physically or otherwise, in their rooms. It will be obnoxious, retorted leadership, but we'll just have to deal with it. Now, one of the things about residential treatment which has always bothered me is the lack of emphasis on a SAFE milieu. If kids don't feel safe, they're not going to be ready to accept our help. So i felt that we were setting up our whole milieu to be disrupted by what's going on in kids' rooms -- their only space to be alone and really safe.

So anyway, for whatever reason we decided to mitose our unit into two units. One of them will have up to twelve kids and one will have up to eight. The eight bed unit will be more firmly scheduled and activity based, with the larger unit being more focused on cognitive therapy. I'm on the smaller unit, which suits me GREAT! My goal here is to provide these kids with a stable, safe environment, where they can finally take a deep breath and look at what their lives have become and realize that there can be a better way. For many of my kids here, this is the first time in their lives they've had that kind of stability and safety. They resist it, causing chaos and problems when they can, to recreate something familiar from their past. But it's pretty easy to remove that kid until he's feeling more cooperative.

Well... i am at work right now, and kids are getting up. So i guess i'll go out there and provide safety and stability.

I've been shot!

Shot for a TV program. If you watch TV, you might be aware that there are sort of morning shows on, where they talk about stuff and do little stories about local goings on. Well, one of the people who's a regular at my fave ZUMBA! class works at Wood TV, (and she's also in a local ad for an air conditioning company or something). So anyway, she works with Terri DeBoer, who's one of the meteorologists and the co-host of a morning magazine show called eightWest.

All this is a fog shrouded mystery to me. I am aware that there's this non-PBS television which is broadcast all the time, but it has no bearing on my life. Besides... no... no. It has no bearing on my life. Okay fine, on Monday nights, i try very hard to take over the kid responsibilities by eight so Karen can watch House.

Right. So Joy (the commercial actress) gushes about her ZUMBA! class, so Terri DeBoer must have smelled a story (and probably a freshly showered coworker) and decided to come shoot a story about us. I was invited while i was talking to "the cool kids" a couple weeks ago.

So Tara (my favorite ZUMBA! instructor) was going to teach Terri some moves, do an interview, shoot some footage, etc. The song we were doing is one i've been doing for a long time in my class, so Tara was like "Hey Juanito, you want to lead this song while I'm giving an interview?" and i was like "Duh, another step to my inevitable worldwide fame?" and did it. So we put the music on really quietly, and i led the song! And a song i'd never heard before! And then the same song again!

It was weird to hear mostly just the tap-tap-tap-tap of eight or so people salsa dancing on a hard wood floor.

I did post a video to the Face Book.

Whee! I'm still refining that dance. And it's a fun one!

Also, yesterday Karen said that she feels better! Woo the heck hoo!!!! I am really happy for her and for our poor household, which has been patiently tolerating my earnest attempts to take care of everything, and not doing a terribly good job... I think the house had reached a kind of balance of cleanliness and tidiness in various areas, with the front room, dining room, carpet room, and kitchen entering a kind of cycle of order. I'd need to cook, so the kitchen would get some attention. The laundry in the carpet room would threaten to swallow Graham, so it would get folded and "put away" (i don't know how Karen knows where folded clothes go. It's a mystery to me. My clothes are stacked, mostly randomly, on some shelves in the basement near the washing machine, which makes a great deal of sense to me).

I used a new technique of cleaning using mostly a broom. See, you start at one end of the house and start sweeping EVERYTHING into a pile. Discarded socks, facial tissues, books, coat hangers, crayons... the detritus of domesticity. Then the pile can be sorted, and much of it can be thrown away! And then your house is tolerably (to me) clean. It's like masking the task of cleaning house (which i'm not good at) as sweeping (which i am good at). I like sweeping. And mopping.

Our neighborhood

Yesterday (i don't remember why i didn't post... oh yeah, working on a computer) i took my kids on a walk "around the block". We didn't even make it around the block once. We stopped by some new neighbors' house, and hung out for about half an hour. They're cool! They listen to downtempo electronic music! So we'll be hanging out there from time to time.

And wow, i feel like i've been so busy. Poor Karen remains itchy and coughy and exhausted, so i'm trying to do as much of the stuff around the house as i can. Karen's being so gracious and thankful, and i hope she feels better soon!

Also, cats can be really cute.

Katrina in leaves

I've overheard people saying stuff like "Man, I have the money, i just don't got it now."

So i say "Man, i have the video, i just ain't got the upwards bandwidth to post it right now." I'll do it tomorrow when we don't have Hulu running.

Today's weather was absolutely perfect. So nice. I wish i had spent more time outside. Also, i made yummy food at home! At home!!! So that's good.