I love the passing of time

I am embarrassed to be an American when I fill out web forms that ask for ‘Country’ and, even though the rest of the countries on the list are in alphabetical order, they’ve bumped ‘United States’ to the top of the list.

It certainly is more convenient for me. But, I think it implies that either 1) The web form designer thought that Americans are to lazy or stupid to find their country name in an alphabetical list -or- 2) The web form designer was an American & thought that we were more important than any other country on the list.

I’m sure there are valid reasons for doing it. Maybe their webstats show that 99.9% of all traffic is from USA, anyway, so why not make it easier for their customers… But, it still makes me cringe when I see it.

I took a vacation day yesterday (Thursday). On *Wednesday*, I had been working on a work order for one of the salespeople. She was having multiple e-mail issues. I worked with her on some & asked her to save me examples of the undeliverable notices that she was recieving, to try to solve the others. I let her know that I was going to be gone on Thurs, but back on Fri. I *documented* in the work order what I had done & what I was planning to do.

I came back today & the work order has been completed out by another co-worker. Now, I should be happy that it got done. But, I’m annoyed.

1) I was already working on it and she had multiple issues that she hadn’t documented in the work order. She told me some in person, told me some others via e-mail.
2) I have so little work to do around here, anyway, why would they feel the need to finish that one, that was assigned to me, when I was only out for one day?
3) I’m sleepy (Shelby up coughing in the night - gave him the full steam/cold/medicine/cuddling treatment ; got up to make sure David was awake at 5:30a; Annie woke up at 5:45 coughing, wanting tissue, coughing, not going back to sleep; Annie’s coughing woke Shelby right before Jim got home, so he didn’t think there was any point in trying to get them back to sleep - I don’t think I explained myself very well, that they should both be *exhausted* from lost sleep in the night/morning & that if we just calmed their coughs, they’d probably just go right back to sleep - so, that left Jim & I with a misunderstanding that’s still nagging at me in the back of my head now, too)

And, everyone in the house is sick (well, except for me & Allison, although it’s possible that either one of us could catch it at any time, I suppose). We’ve got Moon Jumps on Sunday - hope we’re feeling well enough to do them.

Jim & I were chatting last night, about what an amazing kid Allison is. One thing led to another & we started talking about how that’s partly because he’s always (and I have, too, after I met her) treated Allison as an equal, when speaking to her (as we do the little kids). I laughed & said how many family psychiatrists & parenting authors would shudder to hear us say that.

But, the thing is, we don’t treat them as peers, we treat them as human beings, equally deserving of respect. And, teach them to do the same for us, and, hopefully, for everyone they meet. Of course, there are times when we have to say “Hey, I’m responsible for your well-being and, in that capacity, I’ll have to say ‘No’, but I’m going to tell you why, right now, so that you might learn how to make this kind of decision on your own, later, when I’m not around to direct you”.

Takes a little more time than a simple ‘No’, but more effective in the long run, I think.

Allison telling me a little bit more about the friends she’s meeting at school.

We got the Moon Jump delivery job & have 3 setups/takedowns this Sunday. I’ll have to do the last one alone on Sunday night, since the pickup is at 10 & Jim has to be at work at 10. The kids are off work on Monday, so I’ll bring them with & they can help

I’m looking forward to the Moon Jump thing. Sounds fun. Easy money - we figure it’ll be about 4 hours work altogether & that, after taxes, we’ll have about $100 profit. So, that’s about $25/hour. We’ll have to see how it all plays out. Gas prices are certainly going to affect the profit, too, but I think we can claim some of that as mileage deductions for the ‘moon jump setup business’ on our taxes (we have to declare the income as independent contractors). Anyway, it sounds like just the right kind of goofy, offbeat, carny, circus-like job that people would expect us to have

OK, beginning to deal with it all better, now.

Last night, as we were doing something more in our basement, to try to make it into a clean enough living space for David, Jim said “You know, this is kind of good. We really needed something to motivate us to clean this basement, anyway” And, he’s right. So, instead of resenting it (which is mostly because he *lied* to us, saying it would only be a couple days, when really he knew it would be longer), I’m going to try hard to find the positive in it.

And, even though he is a relatively constant liar… He says whatever he thinks sounds best at any given time, whether it is based in any kind of reality or not. And, even though he can’t seem to display any kind of gratitude for what we’re doing for him, or be aware of how his presence is affecting other people, I’m going to try to remember that this is just because he never *learned* the importance of empathy and appreciation in life. And, even though he doesn’t really seem to be contributing much of anything towards his own keep - no help with meals (although, he did bring us some cookies home from work the other day), no offer to clean up, no money (yet) - I’ve got to remember, again, that, emotionally, he’s still in a kind of teenage unawareness.

All day, I’ve had a line from XTC’s ‘Merely a Man’ running through my head, “I had no message and the message was, we’re all Jesus, Buddha, and the Wizard of Oz!” Even David. Must look for the divinity, the humanity, the uniqueness in him. He is just as deserving of respect as any of us.